The Red Eyed League
by Night of the Living Monkey
Summary: Sherlock is faced with a mismatched set of crimes linked only by one odd similarity. The deeper he delves into these crimes, the further he seems from an answer. And the closer he seems to stepping over a precipice from which there is no return. SuperLock.
1. No Hand to Shake

Welcome, folks, and thanks for coming to Night Monkey's latest adventure. This is my first time playing with SuperLock, so here's to hoping it's not crap! Anyway, some individual chapters will come with mild to possibly moderate slash warnings (not yet, you eager beavers) and ye olde "ideologically sensitive" material may pop up, as demons are not polite. Hope that doesn't scare anyone off.

Enough of the warnings, on to the show!

* * *

Jim Moriarty opened his eyes and sat up.

Under normal circumstances, this would have impressed no one, Moriarty included. But he wasn't shaking off a nap.

Unless it was a _dirt_ nap.

Though this surely didn't look like a coffin. Moriarty turned his head, taking in his surroundings. He had no idea where he was, but it wasn't the hospital roof where he'd confronted Sherlock Holmes. The more he looked, the less the room looked like any place Moriarty had any right to be. Though, considering about the only place he had any right to be was either a hospital or a morgue, that on its own wasn't saying much.

Thinking about being cold and stiff on a slab invariably brought Moriarty to the self-inflicted injury that should have thus laid him out. He probed at the roof of his mouth with his tongue. He could remember exactly where he'd jammed the muzzle of the gun, but he could find no hole, not even a healed depression or patch of scar tissue.

Just to make sure his tongue wasn't faulty—not that the clever organ had ever really failed him before—Moriarty ran a fingertip across the same path. The second time around, his mouth felt just as intact.

Moriarty removed the finger from his mouth and decided he wasn't quite done with the self-examination. The gun Moriarty had chosen for his self-destruction was powerful enough to punch a hole through both sides of a human skull. Moriarty knew. He'd done his research. And a few experiments.

The exit hole proved as elusive as the entrance hole. Moriarty flattened down the hair he'd ruffled in his quest for a mortal wound.

With no gaping injuries, there was no proof he'd ever eaten a bullet.

Most people, Moriarty knew, would have been so happy to find themselves alive and intact they would be happy to call it a miracle and leave it at that. Moriarty was not most people. He did not believe in a benevolent god, particularly not one that would extend a helping hand for him.

He did, however, believe in a being almost as powerful, and far, far less benign.

Sherlock Holmes' big brother Mycroft. The wizard behind the curtain of British power.

If anyone had the influence and cleverness to secret Moriarty away and keep him prisoner in an unknown location, it was Mycroft. Though why the far-less-interesting Holmes brother would save Moriarty if he was bleeding from a gunshot, especially considering Moriarty's plan to drive Sherlock to his death, the consulting criminal hadn't decided yet.

Unless this, all of it, was the only revenge Mycroft could reap. Which it was, Moriarty supposed, if his plan had gone as expected and Sherlock was bloody pulp that, like the egg of fairy stories, couldn't be put back together again. Unable to save his brother, Mycroft's only recourse was to instead save his killer and keep him locked away, punishing him with excruciating boredom.

Interesting theory.

Though not one Moriarty could embrace cleanly. For one thing, Mycroft liked locking him in plainer cells. And punching him. Despite all his painfully British composure and intellect, Mycroft would never be able to resist working Moriarty over at least once for taking away his precious, precocious little brother.

The pieces didn't fit together well enough. Maybe, Moriarty decided, it was because he still hadn't dumped them all out of the puzzle box. He needed more information before he could deduce what had happened to him between the roof and the floor of the mystery room.

There were no windows to be seen, so no hope to look out and find a street sign or landmark, but there was a door. Common sense said it would be locked, but Moriarty knew enough of humanity to know just how rare common sense really was. Not to mention, this entire situation flew in the face of common sense. When you shot yourself in the head, you died. Especially when you put as much thought and research into it as Moriarty had. If he could wake up without so much as a scar, perhaps an unlocked door wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

The only way to find out was to test the door knob.

Moriarty got to his feet and took a moment to go over the rest of his body. He already knew his arms worked, and now he knew his legs had no trouble supporting him. Everything felt natural and functional.

In examining himself, Moriarty came to a conclusion. Little time had passed from his suicide (or should he say suicide _attempt_ , as he was decidedly not dead?) to the present. So little time that whoever had brought him here hadn't bothered to change his clothes. He was still wearing the exact same coat and suit—and a quick sniff test told him he definitely hadn't been marinating for days.

No, wait, it wasn't _exactly_ the same suit. Something was missing.

His tie.

Someone had taken his tie.

That little act of thievery did seem to eliminate Mycroft as a suspect. He and Moriarty disagreed on fashion, just as they disagreed on Sherlock's right to continued existence and whether or not strapping bombs to people counted as good, clean fun. There was no way the vest aficionado would be interested in pilfering Moriarty's tie. Nothing in his wardrobe could possibly coordinate with it.

Motivated to find his purloined tie, Moriarty headed for the door. During the short walk, his mind built alternatives should he find the door locked. As he got closer, he canceled any of the physical alternatives. The wood was solid enough to outlast any attempt to kick or shoulder it open, no matter how expertly Moriarty placed his attack.

The moment of truth arrived and Moriarty, with no hesitation, reached for the knob. He turned it and to his surprise there was no resistance.

The door swung open noiselessly. Good, because bad horror movie sound effects would only have cheapened the mood. What lay beyond the door was eerie enough on its own.

The first word that popped into Moriarty's mind was "bureaucracy." The hallway that extended from the door looked like it belonged to a government building that would have made the structures of the former USSR seem whimsical and cheery. The dim overhead lights blinked like jaundiced eyes, and the color that bled from the lights made it impossible to discern the true color of the floor and walls. They could have been white, beige, yellow, or anything in between. Whatever color they truly were, the walls were featureless. No windows, the same as in the room Moriarty had just stepped from. No artwork, helpful directional arrows, or anything else, either.

Perhaps to make up for the lack of signs and to avoid any confusion, the hallway went only left from the door. Unless the Incredible Hulk emerged from the room and smashed his way through the dead-end wall to the right, Moriarty knew what direction he was headed.

Standing at the beginning of the hallway was like standing on railroad tracks and watching them continue seemingly into infinity. From his position, Moriarty could see no end, curve, or any variation in the hall.

He decided to start walking.

It was impossible to judge distance or set goals thanks to the monotony of the walls. Moriarty had only his footsteps to use as a measuring unit, and that wasn't the most scientific or easily translatable system. Regardless of exactly how many inches or feet each step counted for, by the time Moriarty had gone 2000 paces, he figured he should have seen _some_ change. Yes, scattered around the world there were some truly impressive bunkers. No doubt, should humanity ruin Moriarty's fun by nuking itself into oblivion, Mycroft would sequester the Queen and other British symbols inside such a bunker. However, even the longest, deepest bunker built by human hands would have some variation, signing, or at least a bloody crack in the plaster.

Moriarty stopped walking.

Wherever he was, he was going to leave a mark, _his_ mark, on it.

The wall wasn't the best medium for creative vandalism—it was certainly no apple—and Moriarty had little in the way of tools, but little didn't mean _nothing_ , and Moriarty was creative with what he had. He removed a cufflink and used it to dig his initials into the wall. It was a poor use for solid gold, but Moriarty felt the need for petty property damage. There was also a chance, he supposed, that attacking the wall would give him some sort of data. Maybe open resistance would summon killer robots from formerly invisible hatches in the ceiling, or some filthy foulness would ooze out of the hole.

Or maybe absolutely nothing would happen, except a bit of plaster dust settling onto the floor.

There was no point toeing the dust into any meaningful or threatening messages—it was the same color as everything else. Instead, Moriarty snapped his cufflink back onto his shirt, and then turned to continue to journey down the infinite hall.

Only now it was decidedly less infinite. Hardly twenty feet away, the hallway came to end. Moriarty could tell it opened into _something_ , though whether that something was a room, another Hogwarts hallway, or a fully stocked supermarket, Moriarty couldn't tell.

Of the three options he'd considered, the second proved to be the most accurate. The hallway that his joined, however, had significant differences. While the atmosphere was the same, and the lighting appeared just as likely to start an electrical fire, Moriarty found he was no longer alone.

If the sign hanging from the ceiling was to be believed, Moriarty shared the hallway with over six billion souls.

For the first time in his life, Moriarty found himself stranded, without even the vestiges of a plan. He was like every little vermin he'd always looked down on, running blind, helter-skelter through a maze, the master of not even his own fate.

It was suddenly very difficult to breathe. Or think. Or remain standing.

Moriarty stumbled backwards, away from the sprawling human queue and back into the safety of his hallway. He grabbed for the wall and found himself leaning precariously against it, his legs threatening to buckle and send him to the floor. There was a tightness in his chest that was either a blooming heart or panic attack, and the sight of the impossible line only further constricted his insides.

Using the last of his strength, Moriarty turned away. He expected to see the (relative) comfort and familiarity of the hall he hadn't had to share. Instead, he again found he had company.

The new hall-mate, whoever he was, instantly set himself apart from the dreary, drab collective. While his color scheme wasn't much brighter, he possessed a liveliness and confidence that set him apart from everyone else, including, at that moment, Moriarty himself.

He also possessed Moriarty's tie.

"Hello, darling," the man purred. His voice was sandpaper on one side, velvet on the other.

It was that voice that cemented Moriarty's identification of the stranger. The less-than-impressive physical stature of the man had at first given Moriarty pause, but that was a voice that could tempt popes to brothels. Given the atmosphere, there was only one being this could be before him.

"Not quite. I'm the King. Never had wings or the honor of a Milton poem."

Moriarty blinked. So that was what it was like to have his mind read, and to still be confused with the answer.

"Name's Crowley, not Lucifer. He's occupied, and I won the civil war."

So Hell was just as prone to revolution and in-fighting as your typical third-world country and was now ruled by a Brit who sported neither pitchfork nor cloven hooves. Huh. Moriarty wondered how the religious crowd would respond to that bit of information. Or how the irreligious crowd would respond to learning Hell was real after all.

Moriarty certainly knew how he'd responded. Though he was proud that he'd straightened up and no longer felt like he might black out.

"If you're the King of Hell, I suppose you know all about me and what a bad boy I am," Moriarty said.

Crowley grinned. "You are naughty. And you know it. Unlike most of these souls, you're not whining 'I'm not bad, I only drove drunk into a group of nuns _once_.'"

"I do know why I'm here," Moriarty acknowledged. No matter what religious text a person followed, blowing up blind old women and kidnapping and poisoning children were one-way tickets downstairs.

"But you have a question?" Crowley inquired.

"Just one. Where is Sherlock Holmes? He owes me a handshake."

* * *

TBC!


	2. The Perverted Purloiner

Thanks for the favorites, follows, and reviews!

* * *

"He's not here."

One look around the crammed flat told Lestrade the same thing.

"Any idea where he went?"

"Diatom hunting. He left with a bag full of test tubes, so he might not be back for ages yet."

"Still on that project, is he?"

John sipped his tea. "He's discovered three likely new species since he started cataloging."

Lestrade's eyes widened. "That's bloody amazing."

"I thought so, too. Then he went into this speech about how there's probably 100,000 species of diatoms, and new ones are discovered all the time, and if other law enforcement agencies weren't so thick and would show an ounce of initiative and test local water supplies... I'm sure he wasn't talking about you."

Lestrade coughed. "Right, I'm sure he meant _other_ laze-about police forces."

"If he hasn't insulted you right out the door, I can make you a cup and you can tell me what brought you here while we wait."

"I can't say I don't need it."

While John brewed tea, Lestrade took a seat and idly looked around the flat. Sherlock obviously didn't believe in spring cleaning. If anything, there were more books, papers, and experiments cluttering the place.

"Is this official?" John asked as he poured the tea.

"No, not yet, though I imagine it will be soon enough. Honestly, we're stumped."

John handed the mug to Lestrade. "What's the case?"

"Museum robbery."

"Just tell me it's not the crowned jewels."

Lestrade shook his head. "Thank God, no. Small museum, mostly antiquities. Statues, pottery, carvings, things like that."

John thought of the jade hairpin Sherlock had recovered that had been worth over a million pounds. There was definitely money in artifacts, at least some of them.

"Worth a lot?"

"That's the funny thing. Well, one of the funny things. Not really. There's a whole black market for certain items from certain cultures—China's got a whole bloody industry dedicated to fake Ming vases and whatnot—but nothing that was taken was particularly valuable. According to the curator, some of the stolen exhibits were reproductions and openly labeled as such. So they weren't worth anything at all."

"If they're not valuable, and some of them aren't even historical, what _are_ they?" John asked.

Lestrade coughed. "Here's another of the funny parts. They're...you know, fertility statues."

"So someone broke into a museum to steal naked statues? This doesn't sound like a case for Sherlock. This sounds like something mums with teenage boys need to investigate."

"If the culprits are teenage boys, they're masterminds in the making."

John's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean?"

"They-"

Lestrade's explanation was interrupted by the sound of Mrs. Hudson shrieking and a heavy stomping on the stairs. A majority of what she was howling was unclear, but John definitely caught "Sherlock" and "tracking mud all over my floors" in the mix.

The door swung open and John and Lestrade turned to see Sherlock trudge in. He was soaking wet from head to toe, his trousers up to the calf were muddied, and there were, of all absurd things, feathers stuck in his hair.

"Sherlock?" John asked.

"Duck pond," Sherlock said.

Without another word he shucked off his soaking coat and dropped it onto the floor. He was in the process of stripping out of his shirt when John coughed loudly and gestured to himself and Lestrade.

Sherlock sighed. "Mrs. Hudson is already going to kill me for the mud. If I get any more on the floor, she's going to mutilate my corpse."

"I'll clean it up. Please, Sherlock, go change in your room."

"Why is Lestrade here?"

"He's got a case."

Sherlock snorted. "I hope it's less obvious than the murderous orangutan or the wife interred in the cellar wall."

"Oi, that one with the orangutan has, uh, what do you call a monkey scientist? Primatologist! Right, it's got them stumped. Totally unheard-of behavior for an orangutan," Lestrade said.

"Is the case finding a psychologist for the orangutan?"

"You're not finding out about the case until you stop dripping all over the floor," John interrupted.

Sherlock crossed his arms and like a petulant child told he couldn't have dessert until he finished his vegetables. "Tell me about the case and I'll get changed."

"We're not arguing about this. You're wet and filthy. Fix it and then you can hear what Lestrade's brought."

Sherlock pouted all the way to his room and slammed the door. Once he was gone, Lestrade said, "I hoped coming back from the dead might make him a bit more...not that."

John replied, "Not likely."

A few minutes later Sherlock returned. He hadn't gotten dressed, per se, just thrown off all his wet clothing and wrapped himself in a bed sheet. At least he'd shaken the feathers out of his hair.

"Case," Sherlock said, circling around John and Lestrade.

"It's a museum heist."

"No!" Sherlock moaned. "Those are always so obvious."

"Let him explain," John said.

"The things they stole weren't valuable, for the most part," Lestrade said. "No famous paintings or anything like that."

"So we're dealing with unusually stupid thieves who haven't done their research."

"They must be idiot-savants then. Because their heist was perf-"

"Don't use that word, no crime is _perfect_. There is always something, a fiber, a witness, a disgruntled accomplice denied his fair share."

Lestrade huffed. "Fine, then it wasn't _perfect_. It was just very good. Far too good to be any of the smash-and-grab gangs we've got running around London."

Sherlock was silent for a moment. "I am mildly intrigued. Pictures?"

Lestrade fumbled in his jacket and emerged with an envelope. He handed it to Sherlock, who opened it and made absolutely no attempt to explore the contents.

"Is this a joke?" Sherlock asked.

"Er, no," Lestrade answered.

"This was really stolen." Now Sherlock flipped through the stack of photographs. "And this."

The detective tilted his head at one photo. "John, what's going on here?"

Sherlock passed the photo to John, who took one look at it and felt his cheeks burn. "Um, hmm, possibly from the _Kama Sutra_."

"That's an elephant."

"I think so, yes."

"And that's a man. And the elephant is watching him-"

"I've got eyes, Sherlock! Go on to the next picture. Next one. Oh my God, I think we all understand what was stolen."

Sherlock turned through the rest of the close-ups until he arrived at the actual crime-scene photographs. These were much more enlightening, and far less naked.

Given the nature of the stolen objects, Sherlock had anticipated the total chaos and rampant looting that was favored by idiots out to get cheap thrills and channel their inner barbarian sacking...whatever city it was barbarians had sacked. But the attack was far cleaner and more precise than Sherlock had expected. The only cases broken into belonged to the stolen objects. Everything else was untouched.

One object in particular, still safely ensconced behind glass, caught Sherlock's eye. He held the photograph closer to his face.

"Is this gold?"

Lestrade joined Sherlock and squinted to the case Sherlock's thumb was partially obscuring. He thought about it for a moment before venturing, "Yeah, I think so. From a Viking hoard, the curator said."

"I'll take the case. If you'll lend me either a rescue diver or the equipment."

"Great! Wait, why do you need a diver?"

"My diatom samples are sitting at the bottom of a pond thanks to a savage, territorial duck. I need them retrieved."

"I'll see what I can do," Lestrade said dryly.

* * *

Two hours later, John and Sherlock—mercifully dry, clean, and clothed—ducked under crime scene tape and entered the robbed museum. It had been a few days since the robbery, and the museum staff had been allowed to clean up, though the museum was yet to reopen. Considering how many of their main attractions someone had absconded with, it would likely be some time and following some downsizing and re-arranging before patrons again wandered among the exhibits.

Sherlock strolled through the museum, silently taking note of every security feature he saw. For such a small facility, the building had a promising number of cameras. They covered every window, door, and corner, as far as Sherlock could tell.

So long as they actually functioned.

It wasn't particularly uncommon—just unspeakably infuriating—to discover a camera that should have had a perfect view of crime was broken, out of tape or memory, or just for show.

"Any video?" Sherlock asked.

"There should have been, but there isn't."

"Of course not."

"Before you go accusing anyone of being an idiot, the cameras did work. Perfectly. We have video—bloody good quality, too—from the two days previous to the robbery. The cameras, all of them, died simultaneously."

"What about an alarm system?"

"Killed same time as the cameras."

Sherlock looked up at the camera in the corner. "You do realize what that implies, don't you?"

"Inside job. Of course we looked into that."

"Look again."

"Sherlock, the museum has six employees. We investigated them thoroughly. None of them invited a group of hoodlums in to steal worthless artifacts."

"Unless the artifacts weren't worthless after all."

"We looked into _that_ too. A few of the artifacts were worth perhaps a few hundred pounds to collectors, but the most valuable were untouched."

John, not exactly an expert on ancient statuary and art, pointed to a pedestal. "I'd steal that."

"It's real gold," Lestrade said after consulting a notebook.

"Then the objects were stolen simply because they're-" Sherlock grasped for a word.

"Naked," John offered.

"Shagging," Lestrade suggested.

Sherlock nodded. "Precisely. So we've got crude drawings and carvings, worth very little, that were stolen while gold and other more valuable objects were ignored."

John and Lestrade both nodded at the summary.

Sherlock made another circuit of the museum, taking extra time to examine the glass that covered the pedestals and displays. It was security glass, bullet-resistant if not outright bulletproof. Whoever had broken it had done so in one smooth blow. There were no scratches on the glass, just clean fragments. Likewise no signs of melting, acid, fogging, staining, residue, or spiderweb cracking that would have indicated unsuccessful blows.

"Eh, Sherlock, what are you doing?" Lestrade asked.

The consulting detective had made a fist and was jamming it into the holes in the various displays. In each case his fist slid in, just barely brushing the edge of the hole. Though it wasn't exactly a measuring stick, judging by the ratio of hole to fist, every hole was roughly uniform. Roughly.

"Punch the glass," Sherlock said.

Neither John nor Lestrade took him up on the offer.

"You'd break your hand," Lestrade pointed out.

"Precisely. Except-" Sherlock slid his hand into another case "-it seems someone, without sustaining a single compound fracture, did exactly that."

"But that's impossible. They must have used some sort of machine," Lestrade protested.

"That was my initial hypothesis, but the hole is uneven, and from display to display, not quite universal. Any machine would, logically, punch a round, uniform hole."

While Lestrade was pondering this, John emulated Sherlock and did his own probing on the nearest case. Sherlock was right. The hole was slightly larger than his own hand, but the dimensions seemed to be a Cinderella slipper for a human fist, not something mechanical.

Sherlock held up a fiber he'd just plucked from the jagged lip of a hole. "And then there's also the fact machines rarely wear clothes."

After John bagged the fiber for future further examination, Sherlock, magnifier in hand, returned to the first display case and began cycling through the museum again. He didn't get particularly far before he leaned in and squinted at a faint trace of dust that lined one edge of the broken glass.

"What did you find?" John asked.

"Yellow powder."

Sherlock ran his finger along the glass, collecting the mysterious powder. A quick sniff—preceded by an unheeded warning from John not to smell or, God forbid, taste it—provided Sherlock with a positive identification as certain as anything a mass spectrometer could produce.

Sulfur.

Interesting.

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of ways a person might come in contact with sulfur. Anything from agriculture to ammunition could potentially yield sulfur traces. However, it wasn't something that average thief was likely to play with, unless his hobbies included mixing his own fertilizers or fireworks. Besides, sulfur's habit of forming dangerous, lung-burning compounds kept most people wary of it.

The classic rotten eggs smell didn't make sulfur many friends, either.

Still, to Sherlock, discovering sulfur was a boon to the investigation. Combining the element with any potential secrets the clothing fibers might give up could paint an excellent portrait of the criminal who'd done the seemingly impossible task of smashing bulletproof glass with only his hands. Precious trace evidence had many times in the past led Sherlock to the exact building a criminal lived or worked in. Flecks of brick dust, spores, pollen, cat hair, paint chips, anything that was shed unnoticed from a subject, it was all invaluable to Sherlock Holmes.

"You can add sulfur to your report," Sherlock informed Lestrade. "When I finish with the fibers, I'm sure John will be happy to blog about it."

"You know, we _do_ have a crime lab of our own," Lestrade said. "For once, we, _the police_ , could do the analyzing."

Sherlock scoffed. "If I want to wait six weeks for results contaminated by a technician's shedding chinchilla, I'll let you know."

Lestrade put a hand on his forehead, as though he'd spontaneously developed a category five migraine. "How many times do you have to bring that up?"

"Until I find a more ridiculous mistake. Shouldn't be long before-"

"Before you get a closer look at those fibers?" John interrupted. "Right, let's get to solving the crime, not getting into petty arguments."

Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly. "I suppose it would be a good idea to analyze the fibers and catalog them. After all, I don't think it will be long before comparisons appear."

"You think whoever did this is going to do something else?" John asked.

"Given that level of vagueness, absolutely. They're bound to do _something_ , be it eat, breathe, die, or visit the zoo."

"You know what I mean."

"There is a slight chance this is an elaborate prank or new, John, who's that artist?"

"Banksy," John provided.

"Yes, him or something like him. But barring that, everything suggests a well-planned, highly efficient thief or thieves, who are in a lucrative market."

"The market of naughty ancient statues?"

"At its fringes. How many art-related crimes have I solved, John? No, don't bother counting on your fingers. You haven't got enough."

"But," Lestrade said, "There's no money in this robbery! Or very little."

"That's true in this museum. Even the most valuable objects are a pittance compared to what other museums offer."

"So... Oh." Lestrade grimaced.

Sherlock grinned, a little too maniacally for John and Lestrade's tastes. "If I'm right, this is only the beginning."


	3. The Sincerest Form of Flattery

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* * *

The fibers were a disappointment. Microscopic analysis revealed they were cotton, and their dye was used by several large companies that sold clothing across Europe. There were probably millions of shirts across the continent that could have shed the fibers.

Nevertheless, John blogged what meager results Sherlock had uncovered.

Since the fibers failed to crack the case, Sherlock returned to the rest of the evidence. No matter what angle he looked at the assemblage of facts, the alignment was imperfect. Even given his certainty that this was nothing but a warm-up, there still existed the nonsensical nature of the stolen items. Why waste your practice run stealing statues with large bosoms and filthy drawing from a thousand years ago? The room had gold, objects of at least some value, things that it would make logical sense to steal.

Unless...

Sherlock shot up from the chair.

John lowered the newspaper he'd been immersed in. "Eureka moment?"

"Breasts and penises are funny."

John blinked. "Uh, as a medical doctor, I wouldn't say particularly, no."

"But to most people, they're funny or awkward or something you don't discuss at dinner."

John shrugged. Fair statement and summary of the most common responses to mentions of human "private parts."

Sherlock continued, "No one is going to take this museum robbery serious. It's going to be on the back page of the newspaper, or the last minute of the nightly news."

"It's actually on page 13, under the _Odd News_ section," John said. He flipped back a few pages and held the spread up for Sherlock. There was a small photo of the outside of the museum, and the headline _Ancient Willies Nicked_. Sherlock scoffed in disgust. Statues and carvings sporting male genitalia were only a small portion of the heist, but they were the sole focus of the headline, and the article itself barely made mention of the other artifacts.

"But you see the point," Sherlock said.

"That...no one is taking this seriously? At all?" John hazarded.

"Exactly! And that's what the thieves want!"

John replied, "Don't most thieves want to avoid attention?"

"They're not avoiding attention in general, they're avoiding motivating the police or outraging the public. Look at it logically. These are art thieves who disabled advanced security systems and stole objects of cultural and historical worth. There should be manhunts and inquiries and the art world bawling its eyes out! Instead, the whole thing's treated as a dirty joke."

"Because it's 'ancient willies' and pages from the _Kama Sutra_ ," John said.

"Precisely." The grin Sherlock now sported made him look considerably more unhinged than most of the criminals he hunted. "Oh, this is getting good. The thieves anticipated this reaction. They chose carefully. They _planned_."

The detective rubbed his hands together.

John folded up the newspaper and put it away. Sherlock was hitting his stride. There would be no stopping him now.

"It was the ideal site for a dry run. No, not quite dry, more like drizzling run. The thieves were able to test their equipment—it's got to be custom-"

"Or," John quipped, "one of them has fists of steel. Good image for a James Bond villain. Or a kung-fu title."

Sherlock continued as though John hadn't interrupted, "-in a live-fire exercise. They were able to offline the security system, break bulletproof glass, and escape with their prizes. Prizes that would not elicit intense scrutiny. Thus allowing the thieves the assurance everything was up to snuff, and allowing them time to make any modifications they might desire without needing to worry about a SWAT team kicking in the front door."

"If this was a warm-up exercise, how long do you suppose it will be before they go for their actual target? And what will it be?" John asked.

The detective paused for a moment and then said, "I need a list of exhibits, current and for the next two months, of every museum in London."

The scope of the task might have sent those unfamiliar with Sherlock Holmes screaming into the street. John merely pulled out his laptop and got to work compiling. By Sherlock's standards, this was a piece of cake.

While John scanned the homepage of the Grant Museum of Zoology, Sherlock looked to past cases. He hadn't been called to investigate a crime in _every_ London museum, but he'd been inside enough of them to have accumulated a catalog of the most common security features down to the favorite brands of cameras and motion detectors. He matched the security system at the recently robbed museum to that at others scattered around the city, and began to whittle down the list of likely candidates. Once John provided him with a list of exhibits, he could further-

"Sherlock. Sherlock!"

"Hmm?" Sherlock blinked and looked over to John. "There is no way you've been through every museum."

"Your mobile is ringing," John said.

"Answer it."

"It's in your pocket, you answer it."

"I'm busy, John!"

John sighed. It wasn't like he wasn't buried in the pages of several football club museums at Sherlock's request. Not that Sherlock would see the logic in John's insistence that the detective exert a minimum of effort and answer his bloody mobile so John didn't have to delay his own research, walk across the room, and act like the servant of the world's laziest man.

To spare the argument and to catch the caller before they hung up in frustration, John set aside his laptop and went fishing in Sherlock's pockets. Mercifully, the consulting detective's coat pockets were clean, not jammed with evidence or just general crap, and John had no problem locating the buzzing, vibrating phone.

Lestrade's identity was revealed by the caller ID, so John, tempted though he was, didn't answer with "Sherlock's loyal butler."

"Hello, John. Sherlock around?" Lestrade asked.

"He's physically here. Mentally he's gone back underwater," John replied.

"Suppose you might be able to get him to surface for a minute?"

"You're free to try. I'll hold the mobile up to his ear."

John did just that. Sherlock wearily opened his eyes, then narrowed them, then raised them to the ceiling and shook his head.

"Is there no originality left among serial killers?" Sherlock moaned.

* * *

Sherlock despised copycat killers. Not only, or even mainly, because they took innocent lives, but because they took innocent lives in contrived ways and with gimmicks that they hadn't even been clever enough to think up on their own.

History was rife with these plagiarists, both the blatant and the more roundabout. This was obviously the former.

You couldn't get much more blatant than an organ in a box mailed to the police.

Especially when you sent along a letter, scrawled in red ink, and postmarked _From Hell_.

"I suppose the lab's identified it as a human kidney, sans adrenal gland," Sherlock said after a quick look through the photographs.

"It is indeed a human kidney, and not a very good one at that," Lestrade said.

"Obviously," Sherlock said. He pointed to a close-up of the kidney. "Polycystic kidney disease. Advanced. Probably why he didn't eat a portion of it."

John blanched. "Eat it? Why on Earth would he _eat_ the kidney?!"

"'The other piece I fried and ate. It was very nice,'" Sherlock quoted. "From one of the letters often attributed to Jack the Ripper."

"Oh, right. Of course."

Sherlock waved away John's ignorance. The detective knew not everyone could recite word for word the taunting letters sent by killers like Jack the Ripper and the American Zodiac Killer.

"Anyway, do we have a body to accompany the kidney?" Sherlock asked.

"Not yet, but considering the ties to Jack the Ripper, we've got officers scouring Whitechapel."

"Best of luck." Sherlock turned to leave. "Let's go, John."

"Wait!" Lestrade exclaimed.

Sherlock stopped mid-step but didn't lower the foot. "It's an obvious copycat. It's _boring_."

"The paper is from the time period, best the forensics team can tell."

Sherlock dropped his foot. "The paper is from 1888?"

"They can't be that precise, but they do say 1880-1900. The ink is fresh, but it's not typical pen ink. No modern dyes."

"So it's a copycat that pays attention to the details, and probably tore a page from an old book."

A young, frowning officer knocked on the door and Lestrade signaled for him to enter. Sherlock could tell instantly by the cop's body language that he was a bearer of bad news.

"We've found a body."

Sherlock looked to John, who shrugged his shoulders. "We're already here."

* * *

The dead woman bared everything. _Everything_. Even a bit of spine was poking through, a ridge of white in a sea of pinks, reds, and the deep maroon of the liver.

"John?" Sherlock asked from his crouching position next to the dead woman.

"Hmm?" John said.

"Come here. I need your eyes and medical knowledge."

"You want to show me up in front of everyone."

"Only if you're not up to snuff."

That made John feel _so_ much better. Taking a deep breath, the doctor approached the body.

John almost instantly formed two opinions regarding the condition of the corpse: the damage done to it was horrendous, but also surgical in its precision. This was in no way random stabbing and mutilation. It looked, in fact, almost like an autopsy. It even bore the traditional Y-incision to open the thoracic and abdominal cavities.

"This looks professional," John said. He motioned to the body. "A professional post-mortem. Except-"

"Except in your typical post-mortem, by definition, the body is dead," Sherlock said.

"Exactly, and all the blood pooled around the body means this was more of a vivisection," John continued.

Lestrade took in John's analysis and then asked, "Kidneys missing?"

John nodded. "Most of the organs are missing. I have no idea where they are, but the removal was clean. The only thing left is the liver and one lung. Hmm. Sherlock, magnifying glass?"

Sherlock, smiling proudly, handed the magnifier over to John.

The doctor took his time examining the few organs still in their cavity. No doubt, once the body was shipped off to the morgue, samples would be taken from the liver and lung, but even without microscopic analysis, John could tell these were not healthy viscera. The lung belonged to a longtime smoker, and alveoli that should have been pink and healthy were blackened with tar and at least one lobe was sporting a growth that likely was malignant. The liver suggested a long, losing battle with alcohol, hepatitis, or both.

Whoever this woman had been, her internal organs showed she had been sick, possibly terminally. John wondered if she'd known about the state of her liver and lung, if she'd been to a doctor, or if she'd died ignorant of what likely would have killed her if some human cancer hadn't come along and done it instead. Maybe Sherlock could deduce, spot some tiny clue that would reveal if the woman had been to a doctor or hospital.

No, John thought. He wasn't going to ask Sherlock. He was going to do what Sherlock obviously wanted him to do, and deduce everything he could by himself.

John returned to the corpse. He looked away from the mostly-hollow thoracic and abdominal cavities. While the organs had told him plenty, the rest of the body no doubt had its own insights to offer.

The first place John's eyes traveled was to the woman's wrist. While she was devoid of clothes, the killer had left one article of jewelry on her. There was a gold bangle, obviously fake as the gold paint was chipping off, still clasped to her arm.

The gold theme continued on the woman's fingernails. Which, John noted, were real from bed to tip, not appliqués, and long enough to qualify as weapons.

"Did anyone take scrapings from under her nails?" John asked.

"We're waiting on a forensics team, but that's certainly on the table," Lestrade replied.

"Oh, why wait?" Sherlock asked.

"Because you haven't got a DNA lab handy should you find anything."

Lestrade did have Sherlock there. While he was able to microscopically compare fibers with either his own equipment or equipment he could borrow from Molly Hooper, the minute strands of DNA were beyond him. And it annoyed the hell out of him every time he was reminded of this deficit. Unfortunately, DNA sequencing equipment was neither cheap nor easy to come by, it tended to be large and cumbersome, and the damp air of an unused basement flat probably wouldn't agree with it, either.

Though he'd have no choice but to wait impatiently and with much kvetching for DNA results, Sherlock still felt the need to take a perfunctory look at the woman's impressively long and well-maintained nails. If he could spot obvious blood or tissue, at least he could point it out and ensure some myopic tech didn't miss it.

The thumbnail was clean, which wasn't surprising. The thumb usually wasn't the scratching weapon of choice, given its position on the hand. Sherlock moved on to the index finger, a better contender.

"John, my magnifier." Sherlock held out his hand, and John slipped the glass into his palm.

"See something?" Lestrade asked, hovering over the consulting detective.

Sherlock grunted and moved on to the middle finger. He re-positioned the stiff hand, bending the tip of the finger to give him a better view.

"Sherlock?" John asked.

Still mute, Sherlock let the middle finger return to its slightly flexed position and took up the ring finger. This fingernail was the only one to show damage; the tip of the nail had been ripped away and was ragged. Despite the missing top, Sherlock still found something worth magnifying.

Lestrade and John didn't bother asking any questions this time. Talking to Sherlock when he was engrossed with something was as effective as talking to a deaf man.

Sherlock finished with the dead woman's hand and laid it down. He then turned to John and Lestrade.

"This doesn't make any sense. There was nothing, _nothing_ , to suggest this would be their next step. If pressed I would say they'd be capable of murdering a guard or police officer, but only to facilitate escape or-"

"We're coming in at the middle of the story," Lestrade said.

"There is sulfur under two of her fingernails."


	4. Elemental

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* * *

There was nothing John could do to save the furniture, the carpet, or anything else in the flat, but he could at least remove his own lungs and the clothes on his back from being infiltrated by the noxious stink of sulfur. As he headed for the door and fresher air, he took time to see if Mrs. Hudson was in. He was happy to discover she was out, maybe at a shop or visiting her friends. If John was lucky, he wouldn't be present when the landlady did return and demanded to know why her house smelled like rotten eggs. Mrs. Hudson was brave enough to fight the dragon that was Sherlock Holmes in a sour mood, but John preferred not to be drawn into the conflict.

John decided a quick bite to eat would be a good way to waste at least half an hour. And he supposed he ought to bring something home for Sherlock, too. God knew the detective wasn't going to get up and make himself a sandwich or anything. Maybe John could find both himself and Sherlock a gas mask, too. Lestrade probably had access to such protective gear.

A sandwich and a gas mask... John smiled at the thought of it. What an interesting Father Christmas he would be, bearing those two things.

John had almost succeeded in hailing a cab when he felt his mobile buzz. He checked the caller ID and sighed. Lestrade.

After exchanging greetings, John said, "I take it Sherlock won't answer his mobile."

"I tried three times, no response. And I suppose you aren't in the room with him. Bugger," Lestrade replied.

John turned back to the flat and looked up into a window. "It's alright, I'm right outside. I'll go root through his bloody pockets for him. Suppose I'll open a window while I'm in there. Make sure he doesn't suffocate."

"What's he up to?" Lestrade asked with alarm. "He's not experimenting with methane again, is he?!"

"No, just sulfur. Which won't be a problem...unless he turns it into sulfuric acid. Suppose I should tell him Mrs. Hudson will throw him out on the street if anything eats a hole through the floor. Stay on the line, I'll have you to Sherlock in a minute."

A little over the estimated minute later, John was opening windows and Sherlock was giving grunted, one-word replies to Lestrade. After they finished their conversation, Sherlock motioned for John to retrieve the mobile and end the call. John did so and returned his phone to his pocket.

"What did Lestrade want?"

"They've identified the body."

"And?"

Sherlock, without looking up from the pile of papers in front of him, said, "Anjali Gupta, 33, history of assault, trespassing, harassment, public indecency, petty theft, and pet theft."

"Pet theft?" John asked.

"Apparently she would steal purebred dogs and then sell them."

"Not exactly a master criminal, though."

Sherlock haphazardly gathered up the strewn papers, rolled up a map he'd half-buried under said papers, tucked a pencil behind his ear, and then stood up. He somehow managed not to knock over the vials of sulfur he'd set up around the table.

"Where are you going?" John asked as Sherlock moved to the door.

"To interview the sister. Coming?"

* * *

The sister was actually three years older than the deceased, but had lived a life on the right side of the law, and could easily have passed for the younger sibling. She had, understandably, been crying, and a considerate officer had sequestered her in a private room, provided some tea, and a great many tissues.

While John laid a comforting hand on the woman's shoulders, Sherlock bombarded her with bizarre questions. Usually John could pick up some string of reason in Sherlock's questioning, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why he was badgering the woman about farming and terrorism in the same vein.

"No, Anji would never go near a farm. How would she get around in the mud? Every pair of shoes she owns has a heel like this." The sister held her thumb and forefinger three inches apart.

Sherlock unrolled his map and slammed it down on the table, usurping the poor woman's teacup and her box of tissues to keep the map from rolling back up. "Did she frequent any of these places?"

The map was spotted with X's and annotations. The sister looked it over best she could before shrugging. "I have no idea what most of these things are."

Sherlock tapped a random X with his finger. "Most of these are gardening shops."

The sister uttered a sharp, joyless laugh. "Garden? I gave Anji a potted fern once. Thought it might brighten up her flat. She chucked it at her boyfriend two days later. I had to bail her out of jail."

"Moving on," Sherlock deadpanned. "Had she recently been prescribed any topical medication?"

"The only 'medicine' my sister was ever interested in isn't legal."

"Was she or any of her associates involved in pest control?"

"She has a talent for smashing roaches across a room, but that's all I can think of."

Sherlock butted the cup and tissue box away and rolled up the map. He tucked the map under his arm and motioned for John to follow him.

Before they could get out of the room, the sister called out, "Is that going to help you find whoever killed Anji? Please tell me I wasn't useless. Please."

"You were very helpful," John assured her. "I'm sure you've gotten us much closer to-"

"Square one," Sherlock muttered, showing an incredible amount of restraint and tact in saying it too quietly for the grieving woman to hear.

"To bringing justice for Anjali," John finished.

* * *

Once they were out of earshot, John asked, "Why all those questions? About farms and medicine and bloody bombs?"

"One unifying element. Sixteen."

John tilted his head. "Sixteen is a number."

"On the periodic table!"

"Oh." John hadn't taken chemistry in years, so his mental image of the periodic table had some gaps in it. "Sixteen, sixteen, that would be-"

"Sulfur!" Sherlock snapped, exasperated by the wait.

"I was going to say that," John replied. Right after he guessed oxygen, nitrogen, and aluminum.

Regardless of how well he knew his non-metal elements, John knew his medicine. There were legitimate medical uses for sulfur, usually for skin conditions. However, no doctor in his right mind would ever give a patient pure sulfur, and very few patients would stomach the smell anyway. John told this to Sherlock, suspecting he knew it already.

The detective sighed. "Never mind medicine, I was grasping at straws with all of them. I just had to be thorough, make sure I wasn't ignoring evidence or bending facts to fit my theory."

"You had to make sure there were no reasonable explanations for the sulfur beneath her fingernails."

Sherlock scoffed. "I'd take a half-cracked explanation at this point. Because what we've got doesn't make sense! Of course criminals can escalate, but there are patterns, _logic_. A boy who abuses animals can grow to be a man who abuses humans. There is nothing to suggest a man who robs a museum in the dead of night, without injuring anyone or stealing anything of real value, would within a matter of days murder and surgically mutilate a woman!"

John said tentatively, "Maybe you are being too hasty. It could still be a coincidence, the sulfur. I mean, as it's got so many uses-"

"In how many cases before these two has sulfur played a significant role?" Sherlock asked.

"I don't know of any."

"There was one, and I solved it in a day."

"Why don't I remember it?"

"Because you stayed home with the flu and slept. And because it was so obvious a dull child could have solved it, I didn't bother to tell you."

"Ah. Well, what happened with it?"

"An amateur chemist believed what he saw on some television program and attempted to melt his ex-girlfriend with sulfuric acid. The damage to his bathtub betrayed him."

"Charming fellow."

"Probably more charming than the one we're now hunting."

"So you're certain now that whoever robbed the museum also killed Anjali Gupta?"

"Nearly. I can't imagine there are two separate groups of criminals running about, shedding sulfur everywhere."

That was the first bright spot of news John had gotten all day. It wasn't much to cling to, but the fewer psychopaths he had to worry about, the happier he was.

The bright light dimmed somewhat when Sherlock thrust his map of sulfurous hot-spots into John's hands and said, "Regardless of how many madmen there are, we've got to find them. Take this. I've memorized it already. We'll each take half the city, I'll pick up any you've missed, and tonight we'll compare notes. So long as our friends don't strike again."

* * *

With a red pen, John scratched off another potential source of sulfur and psychopathy. There was no way a tiny shop specializing in ornamental shrubbery and run by two middle-aged women was the source of the robbery and murder. Besides, neither their fertilizer nor their insecticide contained any pure sulfur.

John folded up the map and jammed it into his pocket. He looked up at the darkening sky. Though he'd only managed to check ten of the spots on the map, he was nearly out of daylight. It was time to go home.

A quick taxi ride later, John arrived at Baker Street. There were lights on inside the flat, though John doubted it was Sherlock who had lit them. Knowing the detective, he'd be out running leads until absurd hours of the morning. John could only hope Sherlock wouldn't be so impatient he'd break in anywhere.

He also hoped Mrs. Hudson wasn't overly outraged over the rotten eggs stink wafting through the building from Sherlock's little experiments.

There was only one way to find out how outraged the landlady would be, and that was to brave her wrath. John opened the door and walked upstairs. Upon arrival on the landing, he was hit by a powerful smell. Not the one he was expecting, though.

Artificial flowers, lemons, and, blending horrifically with the first two, pine scent created a choking miasma that still couldn't quite defeat the sulfur.

"Sherlock! If you ever- Oh, John! I'm sorry, dear. I thought you were Sherlock. Where is he? Is he skulking about outside, hoping I give you the thrashing I've saved for him?" Mrs. Hudson demanded.

John shook his head. "I haven't the faintest idea where he is. He's off investigating."

"If he's investigating anything else that's going to stink like this, he can find a new place to live!"

"I'll make sure he keeps any further experiments in the open air." Catching the frown on Mrs. Hudson's face, he quickly added, "And far away from your property."

"You make sure he does, because if the kitchen ends up smelling like this, I'll- Well, it'll be something my late husband would have approved of."

John gulped. He knew the kind of man Mrs. Hudson's husband had been. The kind that was too awful even for the state of Florida to keep around.

"I'll tell him the moment he gets back," John promised.

Mrs. Hudson gave him a curt nod. She sprayed her lemon-scented air freshener once more, and then stepped around John. He heard the hiss of chemical citrus air twice more as the landlady moved downstairs.

John shut the door to the flat and then opened every window. While he waited for the air to clear, he tried to breathe as little as possible. Even under the truly massive amounts of air freshener Mrs. Hudson had unleashed, there was still a hint of sulfur. And speaking of sulfur... Sherlock's experiments had disappeared. Mrs. Hudson had probably binned them and immediately removed the bin from the premises. Sherlock wouldn't be happy. Unless he tracked down an amazing lead. Then he wouldn't need his little sulfur vials anymore.

Hoping the detective wouldn't come home pouting like a child denied ice cream, John sat down to wait for Sherlock.

* * *

Sometime after midnight, despite his gnawing worry, John fell asleep on the sofa. He was in the middle of a strange, discomfiting dream about angry, flying lemons when the sound of the door slamming roused him. Still disoriented and expecting a citrus barrage, John sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Sherlock?" John asked, chasing away the last of the lemons.

"Nothing, John! Nothing!"

John blinked. "What time is it?"

Sherlock threw up his hands. "It's not my bloody job to keep track!"

"Right." John sought out a clock and discovered it was perhaps an hour before dawn. So much for their plan to reunite and compare notes last night...

"How many did you get to?" John asked, hoping to distract Sherlock from his quickly blooming tantrum.

"All of them."

"That is impossible," John said flatly, thinking back to how slow the going had been.

"Homeless network. Very useful in a case like this. There's nothing like a pair of dirty vagrants to convince a shop-owner to cooperate."

That was an imagine John could picture all too easily. He sighed. While Sherlock's methodology was effective, and there was no denying he paid his homeless network well and respected its members as much as he could respect the lowly, teeming masses in general, it didn't do much for the homeless people's image in the community. Thinly veiled threats weren't going to make friends.

Hoping he wouldn't regret it, John said, "I'm surprised so many places on your list were open at this hour."

"The law may have some things to frown over," Sherlock replied. "Though, to be fair, not all the places on my list were strictly legal either."

John knew he should have kept his curiosity unsatisfied.

Sherlock opened his mouth to add something more, but closed it without uttering a syllable. He narrowed his eyes at John, who resisted the urge to shrink back into the couch. The detective's sharp gaze then moved away from John slightly, lowering to the table in front of him.

"There's something missing!" Sherlock shouted.

"Yes, Sherlock, but if you'd-"

"Where are my experiments?!"

Before John could tell Sherlock to lower his voice, Mrs. Hudson screamed from downstairs, "I'll be happy to show you!"

John flopped back against the sofa. It looked like he wouldn't be getting back to sleep any time soon.

* * *

To Be Continued


	5. Initiative

Thanks for the reviews!

And Happy Thanksgiving to all US readers.

* * *

After Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson's row over the missing sulfur entered its second half hour, John idly began to wonder how hard it would be to afford his own flat. He was a doctor and a veteran, and if he didn't have Sherlock keeping him up for days at a time with all sorts of insanity, he could surely stay awake for his patients. Given all that, it wouldn't be difficult to find a job and-

A door slammed and Mrs. Hudson shouted, "Then don't come back!"

John considered hiding behind the sofa until he was sure Mrs. Hudson didn't have a little leftover wrath for him, but the landlady's footsteps never darkened the stairs. With peace and silence restored, John stretched out on the sofa. Sure, he had a perfectly serviceable bed, but getting there would require him to stand up and walk. He didn't feel motivated right then.

The silence and the sleep already missed thanks to the shouting match caught up to John and lulled him down into dreams.

* * *

The young officer stared at the stack of post that had just been dumped in front of her. Her eyes widened further when a second cop bearing a large box brimming with envelopes appeared and deposited his load on her desk.

"Please tell me there isn't anymore," she said.

The appointed postman rattled the box. "Oh, there's heaps more. We've got two more officers sorting through it. And I'm sure we'll get more delivered by tomorrow."

"What the hell is wrong with people? Do they think it's funny to send us this shit?"

Her fellow officer shrugged. "People're are sick. They read some maniac's sending Jack the Ripper letters to the police, they figure they'll have a laugh and join in."

Now glaring at the box that had ruined her morning before it even properly began, the woman said, "I'd like to find whoever leaked that tidbit to Tattle Crime and shove these letters down their throat. How are we supposed to find any authentic ones, supposing there _are_ even any, in this mess?"

"I've got a bit of good news there. Lestrade's put out a checklist." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded memo. A little flattening and it was as good as new.

"How am I supposed to know if the paper's from the 1800's?!" the cop demanded, scanning the list further.

"You could eliminate the obvious frauds, such as any printed from a computer. For any likely suspects, you'd then analyze the ink, wood pulp content, and use a mass spectrometer to discover which chemicals were used in the paper-making process. Of course, you'd need a working knowledge of late 19th century printing practices, which only one person in this room has."

Both officers turned to the intrusive figure in the doorway. Upon seeing who was lurking there, they exchanged looks. As much of an ass as Holmes was, he could, no doubt, save them hours if not days of getting inky fingers and headaches.

"Before you take the day off," Sherlock said, "I'll need someone to go on a coffee run."

* * *

An hour later Sherlock had burned through enough caffeine to stroke out an orca. He had also come very close to violating the department's anti-smoking policies. His raging nicotine habit had forced Lestrade to print out signs like those in a zoo that forbade feeding the animals. Only these signs forbade anyone from allowing Sherlock to bum cigarettes.

Even though he had been allowed only one of his vices, Sherlock had managed to clear the entire lot of letters. Most of which lay torn up and scattered on the floor; as revenge for being denied smoking privilege, Sherlock had made confetti. Of the few letters Sherlock couldn't definitively eliminate, the detective estimated two had real potential, and another three were unlikely, though they needed further investigation.

Sherlock looked through the five candidates again. He mentally compared them both to the original Jack the Ripper letters and the far more recent one. Under normal circumstances, hand-writing analysis could provide some link, but in this case, not finding similarities didn't much matter. Among the original letters, there was a huge range in handwriting, syntax, even spelling from letter to letter.

The consulting detective shook his head. He shouted that he was finished with the first stage and had winnowed the overwhelming pile down. He now needed access to a microscope, and possibly a mass spectrometer.

Since a mass spectrometer was a costly machine, and the forensics department had a queue of evidence lined up for analysis in it, Sherlock was forced to settle for a microscope. An old one. That he was warned several times not to drop, throw, or otherwise destroy in a tantrum.

Making no promises, the detective returned to his little corner with his new toy. It would probably be enough.

A microscopic analysis of the paper, comparing the fibers to paper-making processes of the 1880's, proved the three unlikely letters were indeed too modern. Sherlock consigned them to the rubbish bin that had once been a clean floor.

Two final candidates.

Both on appropriate paper, both written in red ink, neither remotely close in penmanship to either the original Ripper letters or the copycat letter Lestrade had received.

Sherlock took a deep breath. And got an idea.

He brought the letters, one at a time, up to his nose and inhaled deeply. He smelled aged paper, and, on both of them, the slightest hint of rotten eggs.

That was all the evidence Sherlock needed to declare both letters legitimate. As legitimate as post sent by a copycat serial killer could be.

"Lestrade! Someone get me Lestrade!" Sherlock bellowed.

A few seconds later Lestrade poked his head into the room. "I'm right down the hall, Sherlock."

"You aren't any good to me there. Unless you want me to shout that we can look forward to _two_ bodies and that I need the first letter tested for sulfur," Sherlock replied.

Lestrade glanced around the precinct. "No, I don't want you to announce that."

Looking back to Sherlock, Lestrade said, "Two letters?"

Sherlock handed them over. "Each describing a separate kill."

"Why the sulfur? What's the significance? Where is it coming from?"

"I don't know."

Well, Lestrade didn't hear Sherlock say _that_ very often.

Sherlock continued, "I've exhausted the map. Every possible source of sulfur I know of in the city, I've investigated it. Nothing. I need a new avenue."

Lestrade waved the letters. "You've got one here."

"And I'll have much more when the subject of the letters come to light."

A grim-faced policeman knocked on the door frame.

"Perfect timing."

* * *

The second body drew a much larger crowd than the first, thanks to the "unnamed source" that had revealed a deranged plagiarist had revived the hobbies of a long-dead serial killer. The police had been able to push the huddled masses far enough back to prevent any selfies with the deceased, though the sight of Sherlock Holmes arriving on scene made the crowd test the barriers. Sherlock and his escorts quickly ducked the police tape and ignored the calls and questions from both journalists and citizens with mobiles who thought they were the next Walter Cronkite.

Like the first corpse, this one was also female. And eviscerated. A cursory glance told Sherlock it was another clean butcher job. And butcher job was an appropriate word for it: again some of the organs had been harvested.

"I suppose we'll be expecting another kidney by post," Donovan said.

The kidneys were located behind the general mass of the viscera, and unlike the first corpse, this one hadn't been completely emptied. Without poking around in there with, say, the stick lying over there, Sherlock couldn't definitively say if the postman would be delivering something renal. He could, however, say the stomach was there, so were the intestines, but the pancreas and half the liver were missing in action.

"Why only half?" Lestrade wondered, joining Sherlock and Donovan. "And give me that stick, you're not contaminating the scene with bark."

Sherlock wasn't that interested in rooting around in organ cavities, so he allowed Lestrade to seize the stick and chuck it. The body part that really had Sherlock's attention was the fingernails.

"Expecting sulfur?" Lestrade asked.

"It's been everywhere else," Sherlock muttered.

Even without taking a scraping from beneath the dead woman's nails, it was obvious she'd scratched at something. Sherlock tilted the rigor-mortis stiffened hand. Yellow was caked under the middle finger's nail.

"And it's here too."

* * *

Sherlock spent half an hour wearing a hole in the floor, resisting the urge to bang his head off the wall, and driving himself in mental circles. He'd stapled the data to the infinite cork-board that served as his mind, and he'd been swirling it around, hoping, like the proverbial tornado in the junkyard, it would assemble into something functional.

It didn't. It remained disconnect shapes and clues. Sulfur, dead women, stolen ancient pornography.

This, Sherlock finally decided as he once more filed through the evidence that refused to cooperate, required a different approach.

The solution to that, at least, came easily enough.

A new approach burning in his brain, Sherlock summoned Lestrade.

Minutes later, Lestrade, his eyebrows raised, stared at Sherlock. "You're proposing we allow your homeless network to 'police' all of Whitechapel? And allow them to arm themselves with whatever they like for protection?"

"I'm willing to make concessions," Sherlock replied. "Instead of 'whatever they like,' would you prefer 'whatever they like within British law'?"

Lestrade rubbed his temples.

"John and I will be there for supervision."

Knowing he would hate himself later, Lestrade said, "My shift's over at five. I'll join you, too."

* * *

In the time it took Lestrade to shower, get into a comfortable pair of jeans and an appropriate jacket, and buy a coffee, Sherlock had dispersed his homeless network across the Whitechapel district. They lingered on corners, slouched in alleys, lurked on the periphery of shops, making owners very nervous. One eager young man, hoping it would net him a few extra pounds if he caught the murderer red-handed, climbed a tree and disappeared into the foliage. Another, who lived out of his car, parked said car as close to the latest murder scene as he could, and pretended to fall asleep. Lestrade walked by a duo of Sherlock's spies without batting an eye.

Minus the pair he'd dismissed as teenagers hanging out because they had nothing better to do, by the time Lestrade met up with Sherlock and John, the homeless teams had dispersed. Lestrade looked around the awkward emptiness of the proposed meeting place and frowned at Sherlock.

"Where is everyone?"

"Getting into position," Sherlock replied.

"Why didn't you wait?" Lestrade asked.

"I couldn't guarantee 'within British law'."

Lestrade crushed his empty coffee cup. "I don't know why I expected you to respect me, Sherlock. I should know better by now."

The detective took a deep breath, trying to exhale as much anger and frustration as possible. "Moving on. What is your grand plan?"

In response Sherlock underhand tossed a mobile phone to Lestrade. A quick look told Lestrade the mobile was one of the cheap, disposable phones referred to as "burners" in some circles and used by those who wanted to avoid being tracked or tied to one number.

"Everyone in my network has the numbers for your mobile, my mobile, and John's mobile programmed into their contacts. Should they see anything suspicious, they'll call one of us," Sherlock explained.

"Shouldn't they call the police first?" Lestrade asked.

"I suggested the same thing," John said.

"The police are," Sherlock flapped his hands, "out there. We're here. And most of my network wouldn't be here if I forced them to interact with the police."

That was just what Lestrade needed to brighten his already glowing day. The knowledge that the people he was working with to catch a budding serial killer didn't trust him or his entire department. There was no way at all that could hurt anyone in a pinch.

"Alright," Lestrade said, if only because there wasn't much else to say. "What are we going to do? Wait here for the calls to roll in?"

Sherlock snorted. "Of course not. We're going to sp-"

"Don't say 'split up' like this is _Scooby-Doo_ ," Lestrade moaned.

"Like it's what?" Sherlock replied.

"It's... Never mind, it's not important. Just know I'm not happy with it."

Sherlock slapped him on the back. "I'd be disappointed if you were."

Having partially voiced his concerns, Lestrade waited for Sherlock and John to initiate Freddy's favorite (and only) strategy before he set out on his stakeout. Much like the homeless man who'd hidden up in the boughs, Lestrade decided to find a spot where he wouldn't draw a double-murderer's attention.

Unlike Sherlock's homeless network—excluding the ones that had a habit of stalking there exes—Lestrade knew a thing or two about watching and waiting. He didn't take to the trees like his ape ancestors, but instead took a casual stroll. He was by no means alone on the streets he walked, and wandered in and out of the paths of fellow pedestrians. As he idly looked into shop windows, he took note of the reflections of those walking by. As was usually the case, nobody's appearance screamed "ax murderer." They looked mostly like typical Britons going home from work, looking for a bite to eat, or just out with their mates.

It was highly unlikely the killer would strike in the crowd, or while there was still a bit of daylight left. As smoothly as he could, Lestrade wandered away from the more populated areas and towards the spot where the first body had been found.

He was dismayed to find plenty of other people had had the same idea. It was impossible to tell who might be on Sherlock's payroll, who was just morbidly curious, and who might be a madman revisiting his kill site.

Well, Lestrade decided, there really was no use standing around in an area as busy and suddenly touristy as the murder scene. What he needed was to find the _future_ murder scene before anyone died there. He considered the out-of-the-way spots at which the previous murders had occurred. They were off main thoroughfares, secluded, but not so well-hidden that the bodies escaped public attention for long. Given that, Lestrade turned down an alley that opened into a narrow plaza behind a strip of buildings.

The plaza was nigh deserted, with only a few lingering employees disposing of the day's rubbish or catching a quick smoke. Lestrade nodded to these stragglers and settled on a bench at the far end of the plaza; his bench, being across from a defunct Indian restaurant and still reeking of bad curry, guaranteed nobody else would want Lestrade's company. To make sure, Lestrade stretched his legs across the bench and pretended to fall asleep.

Thirty minutes later, Lestrade was alone.

Ten minutes later, he wasn't.

Lestrade kept his breathing steady and slow, maintaining the facade of being a bench bum. He didn't want to spring up and surprise anyone going about legitimate business, though the number of legal reasons to be in the deserted plaza was slim. And though the number of illegal reasons was much larger, most of them were relatively petty. A drug deal or quick semi-public shag seemed much more likely than murder.

That assessment went pear-shaped as the intruder approached. Lestrade could see the figure had something slung over its shoulders in a fireman's carry. The something looked suspiciously like a body.

The figure and its burden continued to encroach on the faux-napping detective. Lestrade decided it was time to stop playing bench bum. Leaping to his feet, the detective yanked a handy torch from his jacket pocket and flicked it on. The beam of his personal torch was considerably less blinding than that of his police-issue one (and the torch had far less comforting heft) but off-duty men couldn't be choosers.

"What's going on here?" Lestrade demanded.

The scene the torch revealed made Lestrade repeat the question, but this time with less force and more bafflement.

There were indeed two people, one of which was slung over the other's shoulders. But the proportions... The supporting figure was tiny. It almost disappeared into the mac that hung down past its knees.

Lestrade shined the torch at the childlike figure's face. For a moment it bowed its head, hiding in its hood. When the light didn't retreat, the figure raised its head.

Its eyes were as black as deep space, and as cold.

Lestrade felt a scream build in his throat. Before he could release it, he found himself flying backwards, propelled by invisible but irresistible forces. The back of his head struck the bench he'd been laying on not five minutes earlier and his world went as dark as the little figure's eyes.


	6. The Eyes Have It

I throw myself down into the dirt and beat myself Kylo Ren style as an apology for how long it took to produce this chapter. Please forgive my writer's block.

And thanks for the reviews!

* * *

Lestrade woke with a migraine that suggested he had been mainlining vodka while listening to heavy metal and head-banging against a solid concrete wall. He moaned and raised a hand to his forehead. A thick wrap of gauze impeded his quest.

"This will be the third time we're having this general conversation, but I think this might be the charm."

"Harry?" Lestrade asked.

"Er, no, but I suppose Harry is closer than Martha. That's what you called me last time you woke up."

Lestrade groaned. "John. Bugger, I'm sorry. Where am I? What happened?"

"The first one's easier to answer. You're in hospital. As for exactly what happened, nobody's quite sure. They think you were pushed and hit your head, but from what I've gathered, the suspect is in no shape to confirm or deny."

The detective jerked bolt upright and exclaimed "The suspect!" before his injury drove him supine again.

Lestrade's outburst did not go unnoticed by the officers who had set up shop outside his door. Three cops burst into the room, nearly plowing over the doctor who had also heard her patient's shout.

Still conscious—much to his misery and dismay—Lestrade looked up into the three worried faces that hovered over him. He was relieved when, with a little nudging and haranguing, his doctor cleared a path and urged the police to step back and turn down the volume before Lestrade's head exploded. The image of his head disappearing in a mushroom cloud did nothing to ratchet down the pain Lestrade was feeling.

After asking a series of questions to make sure Lestrade's memory, sense of place, and basic logic were intact, the doctor promised to send a nurse in with pain medication. With the doctor out of the room, the police, more in touch with their indoor voices, asked Lestrade the same basic question he'd just asked John.

"There was someone carrying a body. I remember that. And something...something was wrong with their eyes," Lestrade recounted.

"Any idea what that 'something' may have been?" one of the officers asked.

Lestrade plastered a hand to his forehead. "No. It's blank. But what about the body? Did you find one? And did you find the person who was carrying it? Did they run?"

The three cops exchanged looks. Finally, the appointed spokesman said, "Yes on both accounts. We've got a body, not yet identified, and a suspect, who we did identify. She's a 5'1", 100 pound Japanese tourist reported missing by her husband two days ago."

Lestrade's headache ratcheted up the agony dial. "That...that's impossible! How does that make sense? What does Sherlock make of it? Where is he?"

Here John sighed. "Security ejected him because he kept trying to smoke. Including next to a patient with asthma. On his way out, he diagnosed appendicitis and lupus."

"Of course he did."

* * *

Two blocks away, Sherlock had found someone to commiserate with, coffee packed with enough caffeine to restart a dead heart and then blow it up, and, best of all, an intriguing international mystery.

Taking another swallow of coffee that was hot enough to burn his esophagus, Sherlock watched a sweaty, flushed uniformed man speak to a crowd of reporters and gathered citizens. Every few sentences, he had to stop to wipe sweat from his brow. There was a visible palsy in his hand every time he performed this gesture.

"He is screwed," Jules, Sherlock's French expat friend said. "He's going to be sacked or die of shame up there. Too bad he isn't French. We have no shame. Our president married a supermodel. Then cheated on her with younger supermodel. He laughed about it during the press conferences."

On the television, the shaking had progressed to the rest of the man's body and his color was progressing from red to purple. As though they weren't separated by several hundred miles and the North Sea, Sherlock shouted, "Don't you dare faint until you've given me the required details!"

Sufficiently threatened, the man on the telly took a deep breath and steadied himself against the podium in front of him. "We believe the perpetrators somehow disabled the security cameras before they entered the museum. So we have not as of yet discovered any photos of the thieves."

Several reporters in the crowd clamored in English and Norwegian. Without addressing anyone specific, the speaker said, "The cameras were in perfect working condition. We have footage from them until six this evening, just after closing. Then they were disabled simultaneously."

The reporters digested the new information and demanded more. As did Sherlock.

"Yes, the police are currently reviewing the footage we do have. I'm sure once they've had time to analyze it, they will release their own updates. Of course every member of staff is cooperating. Myself included. We have another press conference planned for tomorrow morning, and we hope to have more information at that time. Thank you."

With those parting words, the head of security departed, probably to the nearest pub.

"What about the state of the cases? Was the human element of the security system sleeping? Was there sulfur recovered?!" Sherlock shouted at the empty podium.

The Frenchman raised his eyebrows. "Sulfur? The smelly element? Why would that be there?"

A normal policeman would have mumbled something about it being an active investigation and being unable to give any specifics, but Sherlock, especially Sherlock in a foul mood, was happy to rant. At great lengths and with the partaking of much espresso throughout, the detective began his tale with the museum robbery closer to home.

Sherlock had reached the first dead body when he was interrupted by someone loudly clearing their throat. He looked across the otherwise empty cafe and found John standing just inside.

"Lestrade's awake and wants to talk with you," John said. He then held out his hand. "They won't let you in to see him unless I confiscate your cigarettes."

Sherlock glared. "Then open his window and I'll shout up from the street."

"We're not turning Lestrade into a spectacle. Get off your arse, Sherlock, and let's go."

The detective snatched up his coffee cup. "I'm taking this with me."

The barista, who had pegged Sherlock as an unstable nutter the moment he'd walked in and had been trying to avoid doing any more than refilling his cup, decided not to protest. Even so, John apologized and slapped down what he hoped would cover the cost of the kidnapped cup.

They had just started their walk when Sherlock said, "I need a ticket to Norway."

"Norway?!" John sputtered. "Why do you need to go to Norway?"

"Someone stole the regalia. Two pieces of it, anyway. The crowns of the king and queen."

John frowned. "That's unfortunate, but I think discovering how a tiny woman cracked Lestrade's skull comes first."

"They disabled the security cameras."

"Like at the museum robbery we were investigating? Was there sulfur?"

"The telly wasn't insightful enough to share that detail. Or any specifics of use. Hence my need for a ticket. Plane or boat, don't care."

"You know, Sherlock, there is an invention called the 'telephone' and it can connect people across distances without dropping hundreds of pounds to enter a country you'll most likely be thrown out of. Before you cross the bloody ocean, see if any of Lestrade's coworkers have contacts in Norway. If there's sulfur involved, we'll go. _After_ you solve the case of the...I haven't named it yet."

"Mysterious Asian body-builder," Sherlock supplied.

"Somehow I think something better will come along. Now please don't do anything to get arrested until you get Lestrade's story."

Sherlock and John entered the hospital. A security guard holding a fire extinguisher followed them onto the lift and up to Lestrade's room.

* * *

With a snap of his fingers, Crowley slammed the heavy wooden door shut behind him. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, indeed. Heavy and aching and full of the bleating of minions too stupid to do their jobs.

The King of Hell needed a drink.

Crowley slunk over to his desk, which had been carefully handcrafted from several species of endangered rain forest hardwoods, and took a seat. This particular seat was a good deal less grand than his throne, but it allowed him to roll around and adjust himself, and in here, there were no peons to impress.

After shifting his royal buttocks until he was comfortable, Crowley looked for something to soothe his irritated brain. Like a good boy scout, he was prepared. He kept a finely-aged bottle of Craig in the bottom drawer of his desk—and a sloppy second bottle of Jack Daniels behind the Craig for particularly frustrating days where he needed immediate relief over a slow, savoring let-down.

Crowley opened his favorite desk drawer and found nothing. Just to make sure he hadn't somehow cast an invisibility spell over his alcohol in a paranoid fugue, he pawed around. His fingers tapped illegally-harvested wood and nothing else.

Someone had robbed him, both of the good stuff, and of the rubbish American knockoff.

Who the bloody hell would be stupid enough to nick the King's whisky?

The demon's eyes flashed red. He rose to his feet and kicked the empty drawer shut. When he got his hands on whoever had had the sheer bollocks to invade his sanctum sanctorum, he was going to water-board the thieving bastard with piss-water light beer, then pickle them in Soviet-era vodka, then-

The swish of heavy fabric interrupted Crowley's boozy revenge fantasy.

Crowley, his eyes still embers, turned away from his desk.

When he'd first entered the room, Crowley hadn't exactly turned the place upside down. He was, after all, the King of Hell and while Lucifer knew he had his detractors, the ones stupid enough to trespass in his sacred space had long been dealt with. Despite that assurance, there was no denying Crowley had heard _something_.

Crowley squinted at the seemingly empty space in the back of the room. When he focused, he could make out a faint shimmer, like heat haze.

The demon's blood blazed.

Invisibility on its own was nothing to write home to Mother about (especially since Crowley's mother had been an immensely powerful witch). Any warlock with a grain of talent could conjure up a pair of invisibility welly boots. However, while said magical boots would grant the wearer access to the boys' or girls' locker room depending on their predilections, an angel or demon would see straight through common invisibility spells.

And Crowley was no pauper hell-spawn.

The King flung out his hand, almost anime-style, and a blast of psychic energy shook the room. Whatever the mysterious shimmer was, it was thrown against the wall with a heavy, physical _thud_. When it landed, it had suddenly grown a pair of legs from the knees down.

"James," Crowley growled, recognizing the exquisite Italian leather shoes.

The legs kicked as Moriarty propped himself into a sitting position. Before he could further adjust himself, he found his body being crushed against the wall and pulled up like a puppet.

Crowley stalked across the room. He reached out and seized the empty air in front of him. To his surprise, his hand sunk deep into what felt like a thick fur coat. As he curled his fingers around the invisible pelt, Crowley became aware of a peculiar odor that was utterly out of place. It smelled like someone had taken a grandmother's clothes, put them in storage for a number of years, and then decided to air them out.

"Why do you smell like a pensioner?" Crowley wondered.

"Cloak's- an- antique," Moriarty gasped, the pressure on his chest seriously limiting his lungs and larynx.

Crowley gave the thus-unseen old-lady cloak a yank. The heavy fur cape slid over Moriarty's head. The moment it was removed from the wearer, it suddenly popped into existence in Crowley's hand. This made sense, Crowley knew, as otherwise it would be rather difficult for its owner to find.

Seen in the light of Crowley's infernal office, the cloak appeared as it felt: thick and shaggy. It also looked as old and worn as it smelled. There were patches of fur that had shed from the cloak, and the trim from the neck and sleeves had begun to molt as well.

It wasn't all entropy for the cloak, however. There had to be something special about it, if it was able to nearly thwart the King of Hell's senses. Crowley brought the bedraggled cloak closer to his face and ran his fingers through the deep fur.

The bulk of the coat was definitely bear. And a monster of a bear at that. PETA may have shat blood at the thought of a singularly huge bear being reduced to clothing, but Crowley didn't care about the ordinary horrors of the fur industry. The average bear couldn't hide from anything more observant than Ranger Smith. This was something else.

Crowley looked sharply at Moriarty, who was still chillaxing in midair.

"Where did you get this?" the demon demanded.

"Not from the London Zoo," Moriarty replied. A moment later his throat was demonically clenched shut. Despite the sudden loss of the ever-so-important element oxygen, Moriarty kept grinning.

Wearing the opposite expression, Crowley released his force choke. "Where. Did. You. Get. This?"

"Otso."

That cleared up absolutely...nothing. Otso? Where was Otso? Both personally and vicariously through his crossroad underlings, Crowley had made deals on every continent. Yes, including Antarctica. He had never heard of even a mud-hut village named Otso.

Then it hit Crowley. Otso wasn't a place. It wasn't a person either, per se.

"Otso, the god?" Crowley asked. He looked at the sprawling cloak in his hands, and thought back to the few legends and rumors he knew regarding the ancient woodland spirit. As the god had seemingly vanished into the forests of Scandinavia some centuries before, the real information was thin. At least until today. Somewhere in the past, someone had killed the god, skinned him and created a powerful magical artifact from his pelt.

"A dead god willed his earthly remains to you?" Crowley asked.

"Wouldn't that have been interesting?" Moriarty mused. "No, I bartered for it."

"Bartered what?"

"A crown and a lovely 30-year-old Glencraig."

Moriarty discovered what it was like to be a kite in a hurricane. He was thrown across the room, this time without even his magical fur coat to cushion his impact, and collided with the far wall. Unlike every other person who had been tossed into a wall in the long history of physical abuse, Moriarty found gravity did not drag him down. He was again stuck with his feet dangling in the air.

"You trespassed into my private domain, stole my go-to stress relief for the past 200 years, and in return, I get a moldy furry suit!" Crowley roared.

"The furry suit's mine," Moriarty refuted. "I've got plans for it."

"Those plans are canceled. You've got a date with a dark, filthy dungeon for the next century."

That was unacceptable to Moriarty. For one thing, Sherlock would be long-dead by then, and while it wasn't unlikely the detective would join Moriarty in flaming torment, they'd surely be given separate cells. And, of course, subjecting Westwood to the damp was blasphemous.

"I did get you something," Moriarty said. "Something _shiny_."

Crowley paused. "Shiny, you say?"

"Something you need."

His pet knew how to get his attention. "What is it?"

"The rest of the Norwegian crown jewels. In particular the king's crown."

Crowley brushed a hand over his naked head. A legitimate crown would be magnificent. It would also silence any further rumors about his "thinning" hair. Of course, so would incinerating the underlings whispering about toupees behind his back.

"Mm, in that case, you've earned a date with a much more fun dungeon."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Reference time!

A previous French president was indeed married to a supermodel.

Ranger Smith is the incompetent park ranger from _Yogi Bear_.

Otso is a Finnish mythological bear spirit. And in modern times, the name of an icebreaker ship.


	7. Work Through the Pain

Thanks for reading!

* * *

Two days had passed since Lestrade's close encounter of the bench kind, and while he had been released from the hospital, a constant splitting headache kept him from work. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could keep work from seeking him out and banging on his door, demanding entry, until he finally relented.

"Can't this wait, Sherlock?" Lestrade moaned.

The consulting detective strode past Lestrade. "No."

"Alright, then. Please come in, make yourself at home, ignore me as my head explodes like I'm in _Scanners_. Not that you'll get that reference."

Sherlock gave no indication that he heard a word Lestrade said. He was too busy pacing the room, muttering to himself.

"Is something wrong? Did that Norwegian detective ever get back to you?"

"The glass was shattered by a blunt object not recovered at the scene. There were no traces of sulfur."

"Oh, well, at least you don't have to bugger around with converting pounds to, uh, kroner?"

The news he wouldn't have to worry about currency exchange didn't seem to brighten Sherlock's mood. He continued to circle like an agitated shark.

Lestrade was more than familiar with Sherlock's antisocial tendencies and his temper tantrums, but he was leaning toward this being a bit excessive. Which didn't imply anything was wrong with Sherlock, just that he was feeling particularly dour and surly.

"Is something _else_ bothering you?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock paused and lowered his head, as though debating his options. "I can't find Trevor."

"And Trevor is?"

"One of my homeless network. I haven't seen him since that night. He's the only one I haven't accounted for, and I've been to every one of his favorite dens. Not even his dealer has seen him."

Lestrade put a hand over his eyes. "Sherlock, for the love of God, please don't tell me things like that."

Trying to forget he was now privy to illegal activities, Lestrade continued, "I don't mean to sound dismissive, Sherlock, but your homeless network is, well, homeless. Is there a chance he moved on? Maybe found a flat somewhere? Or his family took him in?"

"I owe him ten quid. He'd fight his way back from the moon to get it."

"So there's no chance, at all, that-"

"I did tell you the closest person in his life is his dealer, did I not?"

"You did, though I'm pointedly pretending you didn't. Do you want a missing person report filed on him? Actually, no, don't bother answering, because I'm sure it'll be demeaning. I'll have one filed. Minus anything implicating you."

Sherlock grunted, which Lestrade decided to interpret as a thanks.

"Glad we sorted that out. Now that you've done your civic duty, Sherlock, would you mind harassing John for a bit? I need my painkillers and a nap."

* * *

Upon arriving back at Baker Street, Sherlock discovered John still hadn't returned from his grocery run. Which really wasn't surprising, as he'd left without his wallet, and would have had to walk all the way home to retrieve it. Of course, Sherlock _could_ have caught him on the way out the door, but now he had the flat to himself and could put off John shouting at him for interrupting Lestrade's convalescence.

Sherlock situated himself in his favorite chair and let his mind wander. Instead of straying to the murders and the tangled web surrounding them, his mind stayed local. It fixated on Lestrade, specifically on how he'd earned his permanent headache.

The consulting detective brought up a mental map of the plaza where Lestrade had nearly had his brains benched out. Nothing stood out, so Sherlock expanded to the surrounding streets. He then populated it with his homeless network. They were, infuriatingly, human, and couldn't be trusted to stand exactly where Sherlock put them, but even allowing for free will—or the nearly invisible determinism most people falsely interpreted as free will—and short attention spans, the map revealed something shattering.

Trevor had been assigned the area nearest the plaza. He should have seen the suspect enter, dead body in tow. Which meant, moments later, he should have been on his mobile to Sherlock, holding this ever-so-important information hostage until Sherlock agreed to fund his habit for the rest of the month. The fact that there hadn't been so much as a peep from Trevor was almost as certain an indicator of his fate as his corpse would have been.

The detective opened his eyes and leaned forward in the chair. He steepled his fingers.

He needed to discover what had happened to the linchpin junkie.

Sherlock sprung to his feet. He had no time to wait for the police to give a cursory rattle to a few bushes before moving onto missing people who didn't have long histories of drug abuse.

Luckily, he did have one solid witness. Unfortunately, that witness was hospitalized, and according to what Sherlock had gotten from the police, she was completely out of her gourd.

Sherlock would just have to see for himself. By hook, by crook, by bribery or by clever disguise, he would personally meet the most unusual suspect.

The detective opened the door just in time to offer a polite gesture to John, who'd been standing outside, struggling with his burden of groceries. Sherlock ripped the bags from John's arms and deposited them on the floor. John immediately folded his liberated arms across his chest.

"There's milk in there, Sherlock. It has to go in the fridge," John said.

"You've got a medical license," Sherlock replied.

"Yes, I'm so happy you've remembered, but that isn't going to help the milk keep."

"Forget the milk, I need your credentials!"

John shouldered past Sherlock and scooped up the bags. "I suffered enough aggravation shopping to not want to do it again in my lifetime, never mind tomorrow. Whatever your emergency is, it will wait."

"Fine." Sherlock again wrestled the bags from John. He marched into the kitchen and jammed everything, regardless of its need to be chilled, into the refrigerator.

"There are light bulbs in there," John said.

"Yes, and they go out when the door closes."

"No, I mean in the bag. I- Never mind."

* * *

John really wasn't comfortable with this, especially since the patient was in no state to give consent herself and she had no family present to oversee the questioning and object if Sherlock acted like an arse. Her doctor, in John's opinion, was also a bit too quick to fawn over Sherlock's intellect. Given all that, John decided to appoint himself the woman's advocate.

To minimize the stress on the patient, only Sherlock was allowed in her room. John, the doctor, and a muscular nurse waited just outside in the hall, ready to spring into action if either patient or interrogator went too far.

The patient's room had no furniture save the bed, which the patient was currently occupying, and a bedside nightstand with a single drawer and no sharp edges. Neither was an appropriate seat so Sherlock stood next to the bed.

"Hashimoto Miho," Sherlock said.

The woman whose name Sherlock had just spoken twitched.

In Japanese, Sherlock asked Miho where she'd found the corpse she'd been toting. Miho exhibited absolutely no response to a question most people would have vehemently protested.

Sherlock gave the silence no time to grow. He moved on to the next question.

"How were you physically able to overpower the man the police found unconscious in the plaza with you?"

Nothing.

"Where did you encounter the sulfur found on your clothing?"

"Did you discover a witness to your crimes and dispose of him?"

"How many murders were reported in England last year?"

Even throwing curve-ball questions failed to stimulate so much as single tic. Sherlock paused his interrogation and considered what little information he'd been able to glean from Lestrade. Maybe something in there...

"What happened to your eyes?"

The catatonic woman sat upright in her bed. She turned her head to Sherlock and opened said eyes, revealing nothing apparently wrong. Which was not surprising to Sherlock. Miho's scant medical file had noted no physical damage, and Sherlock had confirmed with her doctor that she hadn't been wearing any bizarrely colored contact lenses when she'd arrived.

" _Akuma_. _Kemuri_ ," Miho said. Having relayed that information, she lay back down and returned to her unresponsive state.

No matter what Sherlock asked, Miho's response could have been delivered by a wax museum replica. The detective's tolerance for talking essentially to himself wore short quickly, and Sherlock turned on his heel.

None of the three waiting outside spoke so much as a syllable of Japanese, so Sherlock was bombarded with questions regarding what he'd asked Miho, and what she'd managed to reply. Sherlock ducked around the doctor and his buff nurse. Not to be deterred, they followed Sherlock down the hall, badgering him.

"She spoke two nonsense words unrelated to my case. I wasted my time, still haven't located Trevor, and, now that I've seen her in person, have even _less_ of a theory of how she carried the victim or overcame Lestrade!"

The doctor and nurse fell back. John took this opportunity to catch up to Sherlock.

"Firstly, thank you for not grabbing and shaking a sick woman. Secondly, what did she say? I don't care if it's nonsense, I want to know," John said.

"Demon and smoke."

"Could it be," John made a random circling motion with his hands as he thought, "I don't know. Drugs? An inhalant that caused hallucinations and psychosis?"

"Nothing was found in her urine or blood. And she was tested within hours of being detained. Even alcohol would have been detectable."

"She could have been floridly psychotic. I don't suppose there's anything in that file about the history of her mental status?"

"Only her husband's testimony that she suffered from nothing worse than mild depression five years ago and had never exhibited violent tendencies or complained of hallucinations. He also stated she had planned the trip herself, endured turbulence better than he did, and nothing about her demeanor alerted airport security."

John threw up his hands. He was out of ideas.

There was no immediate snort of disgust or disparaging of John's limited imagination from Sherlock. When Sherlock had failed to comment even once they reached the lift, John stopped. He found Sherlock was no longer beside him, but was still standing in the middle of the hall.

"You have a revelation?" John asked.

"She's a tourist, she must have a passport."

"I'd assume so, but what does that have to do with her illness? Millions of people with passports visit Britain."

"It's not her illness, it's her guilt. I need to compare her penmanship with the Ripper letters."

* * *

Getting Miho's passport was the only easy part of the investigation thus far. Her husband had turned it over to the police, and a simple demand, punctuated by a fist pounded on a desk for urgency, got Sherlock the document in mere minutes. As he was the one who'd identified the "real" copycat Ripper letters, it was likewise simple for him to get access to both letters.

Documents in hand, Sherlock retreated to an unoccupied office. He cleared the desktop (by throwing a number of folders onto the floor) and spread the letters beside each other. He then slapped down the passport and pulled out his compact magnifying glass.

Miho had, as Sherlock had expected, signed her passport with both the traditional Japanese _kanji_ and with the English equivalent. The _kanji_ characters were not much good for comparison, but the English letters gave him three of the five vowels, plus several common consonants, to use. Equally as useful, Miho had a distinct style of writing and liked little flourishes on some of the letters.

It took Sherlock only a few minutes to say definitively that the now-catatonic woman had written one of the Ripper letters; the other looked nothing like her handwriting.

"That's a steep decline in cognitive function," John noted once Sherlock made his announcement.

"One more piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit anywhere!" Sherlock snapped. "What could cause a perfectly healthy, functional woman to become a superpowered killer and then a vegetable? Why is sulfur so pervasive? Who wrote the other letter? And where is Trevor?"

John sighed. "I'm sure I don't know. But at least she won't be killing anyone else."

"No," Sherlock said, "But I'm sure someone else will take up the slack."

* * *

Having nothing else to go on, Sherlock could only wait for his prediction to come true. He and John returned to Baker Street, where John properly put away the groceries and Sherlock paced away the carpet. Then John attempted to read a medical journal while Sherlock orbited the room, passing in front of him every few minutes. This got irritating quickly, so before long, John abandoned the latest developments in combating diabetes in favor of rustling up some dinner. Which he ate in the kitchen alone.

Sherlock had at least stopped pacing by the time John decided to retire for the night. The detective was compressed on the sofa so tightly he might have been trying to turn himself into a singularity. His eyes were closed but it was obvious from how rigid his body was that he wasn't asleep.

"If you stay in that position all night, you're going to cut off the circulation to your feet," John said.

Sherlock was silent.

"Do you want the lights left on?"

Sherlock grunted.

"If you can't be bothered to answer properly, I'm not wasting electricity."

Sherlock was just as vocal in the dark. For a few seconds John lingered in the hall, debating turning the lights back on. Then he remembered Sherlock was an adult with no physical disabilities, and if he wanted light, he could walk five feet to a lamp.

"Goodnight, Sherlock."

John had been asleep for an indeterminate amount of time when something irritated him back to the waking world. He groaned, rolled over in bed, and groped for his mobile. The screen blinked to life with much more vigor than John himself, and revealed the time was just after four in the morning.

Now awake (more or less), John tried to discern what had pulled him from his dreams. For a minute there was only silence and John was about to dismiss the whole thing as his imagination and lay his head back down when he heard the modern age's version of nails on a chalkboard: a ringtone. It was faint, and not his, but so long as it played, there would be no sleep.

"Sherlock, pick up your bloody mobile," John muttered.

To John's surprise, Sherlock overcame his legendary laziness and answered the phone. Or threw it out the window for all John knew. Either way, at least it was finally quiet.

...Until the bedroom door slammed open and Sherlock rushed in.

"Get up!" Sherlock demanded.

"Alright, fine, give me a moment."

"Now!" John found his blanket torn away. "We've got go!"

"I'm not going anywhere in my pajamas. I need five minutes. Whatever's happened, you're going to have to make time."

"Trevor's been found badly burned and unconscious."

John gaped. "Make it three minutes."


	8. The Consulting Grammarian

Thanks for reading!

* * *

Sherlock's first impulse was to ask, "Was he attacked with acid?"

Trevor's doctor scratched his chin thoughtfully. "By appearances, that was our first guess. But the only foreign substance we were able to detect on his face was...water. We sent it to our lab, of course, and found nothing toxic in it. Just trace minerals you'd find anywhere."

Sherlock leaned down for a closer look at Trevor's face. Or what remained of it. It was instantly apparent to the consulting detective that even boiling water could not have caused that sort of damage. Maybe if Trevor's head, neck, shoulders, and upper chest had been jammed into a hospital's surgical instrument sterilizer, that would have come close, but industrial medical equipment wasn't common in the car parks of abandoned factories.

"Did he give any statements to paramedics?" Sherlock asked.

"Unintelligible screaming, which, given the nature of his injuries, is about what I'd expect," the doctor replied.

"Was anything unusual with his eyes?"

The doctor tilted his head. "He will likely be blind in the right eye for the rest of his life, if that's what you mean."

It wasn't, but the doctor's body language made it clear there was nothing "wrong" with Trevor's eyes beside the scalding they'd received.

That meant there was nothing else to be gleaned from Trevor's heavily sedated body, at least not then. Sherlock took one more look at the bandaged form and then sought the door. If there were no answers to be had from the victim, maybe the crime scene would be more garrulous.

* * *

If the crime scene had been capable of speaking, it would have been a naked man stoned out of his gourd on PCP and screaming mindlessly at the sky.

The scene was so absurd that Lestrade, upon hearing a description over the phone, had no choice but to see it for himself. On the drive over, he went over what he'd been told. Then went over it again. Then swallowed two more painkillers with his coffee.

"Why couldn't this have waited another day?" Lestrade asked himself as he parked.

Upon finally arriving on the scene, he amended that to, "Why couldn't this have waited until I retired?"

The location of the crime at least kept the number of curious onlookers to a minimum, but the cops gathered around were doing plenty of gawking.

"It- what in the hell is it?" Lestrade asked.

"It looks like devil worship," Sally Donovan opined.

A young officer beside Donovan squirmed. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

Donovan rolled her eyes. "This isn't the army, Webley. Whatever, permission granted."

"It's actually the opposite," the cop said.

"Opposite of what?"

"Devil worship. This is actually something called a 'Devil's Trap.' It's supposed to protect you from demons. At least according to the books we found in my grandmother's attic."

This time Donovan's eye-rolling was accompanied by a sigh. "If this is supposed to be good magic, why in the hell was someone almost burned to death inside it?"

"He wasn't burned, he wasn't attacked with acid, and barring a weaponized steam sterilizer roaming the countryside, there is no explanation as of yet that satisfies me."

Donovan, Lestrade, and the assorted policemen with time on their hands all turned to see Sherlock stride upon the scene. Watson followed shortly behind him.

"How's he doing? Your friend?" Lestrade asked.

"He isn't my friend," Sherlock replied simply. Behind his back, Watson aped him, mouthing the exact same sentence at the exact same time. "He was a paid business partner I was trying to keep from becoming an overdose statistic."

"Still a psychopath, I see," Donovan noted.

"High-functioning sociopath," Sherlock replied. John again mimicked him silently and perfectly.

"He's alive," Watson said. "And he's expected to survive."

"See, Sherlock, that's how you at least pretend to care about others' well-being," Donovan said.

Instead of responding to Donovan's needling of his lack of empathy, Sherlock crouched down to investigate something he wasn't exposed to at least once a week. In fact, minus basic similarities to a poor pentagram spray-painted by a teenager playing Satanist, the symbol was unlike anything Sherlock had ever seen.

It was a perfect circle, with a star inside it. The very tips of each of the star's arms touched the rim of the circle. Between the arms of the star were a number of symbols, a different symbol occupying the space between each arm. Sherlock was unsure if these symbols were supposed to be merely pictographs, or if they were words in a foreign language.

Sherlock walked the perimeter of the strange pentagram. It was _not_ , he realized, perfect per se. There were numerous smudges and smears in the paint. Near the spot where the tip of the star met the circle, the red paint had dripped and run. The reason for the damage was obvious: there was still a small puddle of water, tinted pink by the paint, gathered in a shallow depression the star-tip had been painted over.

It hadn't rained yesterday, and besides, there were plenty of deeper potholes that were empty. Wherever this water had come from, it hadn't been the sky.

From his coat pocket Sherlock withdrew two wrapped cotton swabs and two capped test tubes. He jabbed one swab into the water, and then dragged a second through the paint at the edge of the puddle. Sherlock then sealed the swabs in the test tubes for future analysis.

Though he had a sinking feeling that the results would be the same as those pulled from Trevor. Water, with no accompanying explanation.

Samples collected, Sherlock rose from the shore of the puddle and looked for clues beyond the occult circle. No doubt the bright red circle was the most eye-catching feature of the car-park-returning-to-field—and the only thing the police could talk about—but everything from the patches of weeds poking up through the crumbling macadam to a crumpled tarp had stories to tell, if there was a listener with ears deft enough to hear them.

John was usually happy to give Sherlock all the time he needed to collect fibers, random spores, and whatever other micro evidence a case provided. In this instance, however, John couldn't help but feel Sherlock was being thick.

"Er, Sherlock?" John said.

"This insect did not die of natural causes," Sherlock replied.

"I'm sure the bug version of Scotland Yard will be thrilled to hear that. However, there is a _human_ who may have a bit more to say than that beetle."

"Humans _always_ have more to say. And ninety-nine percent of it it useless, inane, distracting, misinformed, foolish, irritating, or any combination of the aforementioned. This beetle tells one simple narrative."

"That beetle isn't an expert on mysterious circles."

"I'm not an expert by any means!" Webley protested.

Sherlock snorted. "Because it's no more possible to be an expert on 'mysterious circles' than to be an expert on unicorns or Bigfoots."

"Shouldn't it be 'Bigfeet'?" Lestrade asked.

"A neologism, even one formed from a word that has an atypical plural, follows the usual rules of the English language. Hence 'footballers,' not 'feetballers.'"

John scowled at Sherlock. "Thank you for the grammar lesson. I still think you should at least attempt human communication. Even if there's no such thing as magic, maybe he has insight on the type of person that might believe in it."

"A child or a lunatic," Sherlock said. "There. I didn't need his help after all."

Watson threw his hands into the air. "Fine, Sherlock, interrogate the dead insect instead."

Sherlock did better than that: he scraped the beetle off the ground and added its remains to another test tube. He then walked over to the last element that required inspection: the tarp. The consulting detective spread the tarp out and knelt down on it, using his hands and knees to keep it from flapping in the breeze.

As expected, the tarp was spotted with red. It had obviously been thrown over the pentagram before the paint had completely dried. That little detail implied that the occult artist had either not paid much attention, or had been forced to cover his masterpiece in a hell of a hurry.

When the crushed insect and the flattened grass were brought into the picture, Sherlock was convinced the circle had been covered due to a sudden necessity. Whoever had painted the pentagram had had a plan, but it had gone at least marginally pear-shaped. Because that grass hadn't been stepped on, it had been rolled across once and then the stalks had been broken again from a different angle. And as for the beetle, it had been crushed by a thumb. Or possibly an unusually shaped toe. Luckily, both fingers and toes yielded unique prints, and Sherlock hoped to lift some identifiable whorls from the shiny carapace.

Until he was able to examine the carcass for latent prints and the water for any amazing, face-melting impurities, Sherlock found little else to go on. The crime scene had said plenty, but it was like taking a single word from every sentence in a long conversation and trying to find cohesion. So very much was missing. Motivation, for instance. There was nothing here to explain why someone had painted a pentagram, and then concealed and revealed it. Off the top of his clever, clever head, Sherlock could think of no logical reason for it.

That meant it was time to stop trying to get into the demented head of a would-be wizard and pull facts from the evidence already collected. Sherlock motioned for Watson, who was no doubt trying to make Webley feel better about himself. Without waiting for Watson to finish his cheer-up speech, Sherlock headed for the perimeter.

"Er, Sherlock, are you taking that evidence with you?" Lestrade asked.

"What he meant to say," Donovan said, "is that you're _not_ taking that evidence with you."

Sherlock glared at both of them and then at the tarp dangling from his hand. He dropped it and then obnoxiously bowed to Donovan.

"Oh, go on and take it," Sherlock said. "Even your forensics team should be able to tease a fingerprint or two from such a forgiving material."

Before Donovan could leap on Sherlock like a puma and pummel him, Watson grabbed his friend by the arm and speed-walked him away from imminent conflict.

"We have got to work on your people skills, Sherlock."

* * *

Insect chitin was no doubt much more difficult to pull a fingerprint from than tarp was, but in the end, Sherlock succeeded in teasing a partial print from the beetle. A very partial print. Perhaps not even enough to be admissible as evidence in court.

It was, however, enough for him to be sure it did not belong to Trevor.

"Does your homeless network know you catalog their fingerprints?" John asked.

"The observant ones have likely noticed me dusting their effects."

John glanced down at the pile of papers beside Sherlock's elbow. There was a column of names, and across from the names, a variety of fingerprints. Some looked almost professional and contained all five fingers from either hand. Others were haphazard, missing fingers, or containing only a few loops and whorls.

"Were the prints on the beetle Trevor's?"

"No."

"What about the tarp?"

Sherlock snorted. "I'll expect those results next week."

"Any-"

The consulting detective spun his chair away from the microscope he'd been using for the comparison. "No, John, I have no idea who these prints belong to! I can only eliminate most of my homeless network, Lestrade and his forensic team, Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, myself, and you!"

"You've got my-"

"Of course I do! Because first responders touch _everything_! Even the ones that know better! By maintaining a personal list of these fingerprints, I can quickly and efficiently identify truly suspect prints."

"Your brother and landlady are not first responders," John pointed out.

"No, but Mycroft's prints were the first set I ever lifted. And Mrs. Hudson's are everywhere. I can't help but notice them. Now, any other questions or may I commence my brooding and pacing?!"

"Just one more. When are you going to acknowledge the consult who's been waiting for two hours now?"

* * *

It took three spoken sentences from the unusually patient client for Sherlock to deduce he wanted nothing to do with a case that couldn't even be called a case, unless being a paranoid housekeeper became a crime.

"But he would _never_ miss a mass!"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea how many times I've heard 'he would never cheat on me' or 'she would never drain my bank account, stab my dog, and burn my house down'?"

"But it isn't like that! Even when he had swine flu-"

"As a doctor," John interjected, "I can suggest he should have canceled mass that day."

"My point is, he's dedicated. And, even if he did leave, which he did not, nothing was missing from his rooms. Or the church itself."

"You can attest that not even a single penny was missing from the collection plate?"

The resounding smack of flesh on flesh was firecracker loud. John jumped up to place a restraining hand on the housekeeper's shoulder, as she already had a second round in the chamber, her right hand cocked behind her head.

As though he hadn't just been smacked hard enough to nearly knock his ear off, Sherlock languidly turned his face, exposing the side that wasn't an inflamed red to the enraged housekeeper.

For a moment it looked like the housekeeper would return the symmetry to Sherlock's face. Her hand twitched, and John prepared to haul her away. Then, with a sigh, the woman lowered her arm and tucked it against her side, lest she be tempted to violence again.

"I'm sorry," she said, eyes averted.

"Why? You convinced me to take the case!"

* * *

The housekeeper—her name was May, as she reminded Sherlock every time he referred to her as "the housekeeper"—drove faster and more recklessly than most of the cabbies Sherlock and John had encountered. Her language tended to be a bit less colorful, however. And her radio didn't blare either awful English pop music, awful Indian pop, or awful Russian pop. All of which Sherlock, damn his polyglot nature, understood.

Without music that bordered on torture invading his ears, Sherlock was able to better concentrate on where May the madwoman was driving. It certainly didn't appear to be towards any of the major churches or cathedrals in the city. Which didn't surprise the detective. He doubted the Bishop of Cranberries would employ someone who threatened to run down civilians.

As the car continued to careen towards its destination, Sherlock began to recognize buildings. He had already taken some of these streets, only hours earlier. The route wasn't exactly the same, and towards the end May veered hard to the west, but the mystery circle was only a hop, skip, and a jump away.

"Sherlock? We're here," John reported.

The detective shook his head, clearing out the invasive thoughts. At least partially. He allowed them to stay on the periphery, like predators snarling just outside the firelight, in case he needed them.

Sherlock took in the church. It was, to say the least, unconventional. There was no steeple, no stained glass, no bell-tower. The building looked more likely to house a pub than a house of worship.

"The rent was cheap, and our mission is to be accessible, earthly, and available. The congregation, not the trappings, are what we're concerned with," May said, as though reading Sherlock's mind.

May jogged ahead to unlock the door, but Sherlock stopped her.

"When you arrived this morning, was the door open or locked?" Sherlock asked.

"Locked."

"Can it be locked from the outside and the inside?"

May nodded. "And before you ask, only Reverend David and I have keys."

Sherlock nodded and motioned for May to unlock the door. She did so, and held the door so Sherlock and John could enter.

The door opened into a short hallway, at the end of which was the church itself. There was only the most basic of furniture, most of it mismatched. Instead of pews, there was an assortment of chairs and benches. The altar was a simple table draped in a white cloth. The pulpit had been created by a loving but unskilled carpenter.

Sherlock strode up the central aisle toward the pulpit. Up close, it was apparent the rough-cut wood had been carefully varnished and polished. The top of the pulpit, particularly the sides, were smudged, as would be expected when someone sweaty from either passion or nervousness clutched it on a regular basis. While it was apparent May had taken pains to scrub the platform, she hadn't been able to obliterate all fingerprints.

His breath caught in his throat as Sherlock fumbled in his pocket for his magnifying glass. There was no way. It was absurd. What connection could an updated pastor possibly have to arcane symbols and inexplicable injuries?

He would have to find out.

Because the missing reverend's fingerprints had somehow worked their way onto the crushed carcass of a beetle.

* * *

TBC!


	9. According to the Lore

Thanks to everyone reading, favoriting, following, or reviewing!

* * *

Sherlock, at first cautiously aided by May, tore into Reverend Dave's belongings. By the time he was throwing everything out of the reverend's wardrobe, May had moved to open resistance. And when Sherlock kicked out the floor of said wardrobe, May had to be physically pulled off the detective.

"You can't destroy a man of God's property!" May shouted as John struggled to keep her from pummeling Sherlock.

"False bottom. Obvious given the height of the wardrobe," Sherlock replied.

"Still," John suggest, "couldn't you have just opened it?"

"This was quicker."

Sherlock enlarged the hole his foot had created and then leaned his head over to survey the contents of the secret compartment. The false bottom contained a book that, with a little inspection, proved to be something very different from a bible.

May abruptly stopped writhing in John's arms. Her mouth dropped open. "What is that?"

Sherlock flipped through a few pages of the book. Then he returned to the cover and scrutinized it with his magnifier.

"What is that?" May repeated.

"I'd like to know, too, Sherlock," John added.

"It appears to be, judging by the typeset, style of the illustrations, and the quality of the paper, to be either late 18th century or early 19th. And it's bound in human skin."

"WHAT?" John and May exclaimed together.

Sherlock tried to pass the book to John so he could examine the binding for himself. John politely and firmly refused. When Sherlock offered the book to May, she shrieked and backed towards the door.

"Look on the bright side!" Sherlock said as he stopped attempting to share the book and instead immersed himself in it.

"You found a book covered in human skin in a secret compartment in the bedroom of a man I highly admired! What bright side could there possibly be?" May demanded.

"Given the age of the book, at least we can say Dave didn't tan the hide himself."

May, suddenly an alarming shade of green, retreated back to the church.

John, who was more acclimated to Sherlock discovering macabre artifacts, stepped closer to the detective so he could get a better look at the book's contents. It was written in Latin, a language John knew only in regards to anatomy and the scientific names for pathogenic bacteria. Somehow, John doubted _Treponema pallidum_ was going to appear in the text.

"What's it say?" John asked.

Instead of answering prematurely, Sherlock blazed through the first ten pages at a speed that left John unsure he was even reading at all. As he progressed, the frown on Sherlock's face deepened.

"It's the 18th century equivalency of Dungeons and Dragons," Sherlock finally said, slamming the book closed.

"And that means what exactly?"

"See for yourself."

"I can't read Latin."

Sherlock sniffed, as though John had just revealed he was entirely illiterate.

"The illustrations should be enough."

Wishing he had a pair of gloves to keep his hands from directly touching the human leather, John tentatively opened the book. The first page looked like a table of contents, with the chapters numbered in Roman numerals. A few of the words were cognates, and John was able to make educated guesses based on these words, but many of the chapters remained in the dark.

John flipped the page and tried to ignore the writing. He focused instead on the drawings. From page to page, it was apparent one artist hadn't done them all. Whatever the drawings were supposed to be, several people had been in on the project.

Reading a picture book was much easier than reading a 300 year old tome in a dead language, and John soon was beyond what Sherlock had perused. And it seemed with every page, the illustrations got weirder. John was beginning to see what Sherlock meant by "Dungeons and Dragons." The book was filled with strange mythical creatures and humans with...super powers? Diseases? A bad reaction to spoiled haggis?

"I have absolutely no idea what is going on here," John said. He handed the book back to Sherlock. "Please just explain why this book exists."

"Because humans, instead of thinking critically and accepting the inevitability of eternal oblivion, prefer to play pretend."

John groaned. "I don't mean explain it philosophically. I mean, it looks like nonsense, but someone bound it in human skin!"

"Last week a man stabbed his own grandmother because she misidentified Keith Moon as a beetle. I will concede it's painfully obvious he is a man and not an insect, but she was in the early stages of dementia."

"Beatle as in the band, not...never mind. I understand there isn't always a logical explanation behind human behavior, and God knows we've seen enough impulsive weirdness, especially lately, but..."

John trailed off and frowned deeply. "Give me the book for a second."

Sherlock handed it back. "Care to puzzle out the Latin again?"

"No, one of those drawings. There was something-"

"The werewolf? No, John, we're a week from the full moon."

"Not the bloody werewolf, the little girl."

Now it was Sherlock's turn to frown. He hadn't moved past chapter one, which meant he'd missed the little girl.

John flipped the yellowed pages until he found what he was looking for. Across from an illustration of a man vomiting copious sludge was a picture of a child and an adult man. The child had an arm extended and the man was flying away from her.

"Miho isn't a great deal taller," John said.

For a moment Sherlock was still. Then he snatched the book from John, violently wrenching it from the surprised doctor's hands. The detective's eyes roamed across the page, first to the illustration John had been talking about, and then to the suddenly much more interesting one next to it.

" _Kemuri_ ," Sherlock whispered, drawing a finger across the bizarre picture.

"What? Oh, she said that, what was the translation? Smoke! Is that smoke?" John squinted at what he had initially thought of as vomit. Upon closer inspection, it did appear more like a billowing cloud than like liquid.

Instead of replying, Sherlock turned and strode for the door. John would have liked time to get annoyed at Sherlock's taciturnity, but the consulting detective's longer legs didn't give him a chance.

* * *

To nobody's surprise, May wanted nothing to do with Sherlock, John, or the book tucked under Sherlock's arm. What was surprising was how hard she could chuck her car keys when Sherlock demanded she either play chauffeur or abdicate the position to John. If her aim had been more precise, John was sure he'd be pulling the keys from his skull instead of out from under a bench.

"We'll return the car," John promised as he hurried after Sherlock.

"Bugger the car! When you find David, tell him I quit!" May shouted.

John found Sherlock in the passenger's seat, the book spread open on his lap. Sherlock, without glancing up, said, "Drive."

"Oh, excellent idea. Where would you like me to go? Home? Straight into the ocean? That weird bloody French taco restaurant?"

"I thought you understood!" Sherlock snapped.

"I don't understand any of this!"

"You were the one who made the comment about Miho! And the 'smoke' bit wasn't enough, either?"

"Everything is always so clear in retrospect," John muttered as he started the car.

* * *

The drive to the hospital was tense, sullen, and on John's part, full of distraction. Though he knew the dangers of letting his attention wander while behind the wheel, John's eyes were drawn to the ancient tome and its disturbing contents. Sherlock read nearly as quickly as John could get a handle on the illustrations. This meant John had to cram in as much 300 year-old weirdness as possible while stopped for traffic lights or pedestrians. It also meant a number of times, drivers behind him had to resort to horns and swearing to remind him green meant go.

They arrived without any road-rage fatalities. Sherlock barely waited for John to park before he threw open the car door and marched toward the hospital. John jogged after him, knowing he would need to be the one to distract security so they wouldn't get too curious about the unholy antique Sherlock was bringing into the building.

By some miracle—and some clever doctor-speak on John's part—Sherlock and John were allowed up to see Miho's doctor. Their luck held, and it was the same man they'd spoken to during the first visit. He tried to shake hands with Sherlock, but the detective was otherwise occupied with his book. The doctor settled for shaking hands with John.

"So, has there been a break in the case?" the doctor inquired.

"There's been...something," John replied. "Sherlock would like to interview Mrs. Hashimoto again, with a few visual aids, to see if they garner any sort of reaction."

"Ah, well, you may get what you want. She has been reacting to a greater variety of stimuli since you were last here. When her husband visits, he can usually coax a few words from her. She's also been able to feed herself," the doctor said.

"Any idea what triggered the catatonia in the first place?" John asked.

"We're assuming trauma, given where she was found, but we've got nothing specific. Anyone who asks about it, whether it be her husband, the police, myself, gets no reply."

"Let me try," Sherlock said. "Now."

The doctor held up his hands. "Alright, but I won't have you sending her backwards. Her progress is fragile and- Fine, fine, but her husband is due here in twenty minutes and you've got to be gone by then."

Sherlock said, "She will either respond instantly, or I'm wasting my time."

"I must say, I am interested to see what you've got up your sleeve."

Permission granted, Sherlock slipped quietly into Miho's room. She actually glanced up at him, a major improvement over the first time he entered her room.

"Hashimoto Miho," Sherlock said.

The woman gave a slight nod. Or maybe it was an involuntary jerk or dip. Sherlock wasn't quite sure.

In Japanese, Sherlock said, "I have pictures I would like you to view."

Miho gave no reply, so Sherlock decided silence equaled consent. He opened the book to the pre-selected page and placed the book on Miho's lap.

" _Iie_!" Miho shrieked.

John's Japanese was even worse than his Latin, but the shrill screaming was universal. He and Miho's doctor rushed into the room.

"Sherlock, enough!" John yelled. "You got what you wanted."

The detective picked up his book and turned on his heel. John followed close behind him. Miho's doctor was left to clean up the emotional wreckage.

* * *

"What in the hell was that?!" John demanded as they rode the lift down to the lobby.

"Possibly something, possibly nothing," Sherlock replied.

"Oh, that is _bollocks_! What did you show her to trigger that?!"

"I should have used a control group; that would have been more definitive."

"That is not an answer to anything I've asked!"

"We've got to see Lestrade. And take me to a bookstore."

* * *

"Why am I looking at _Jane's New Puppy_ and _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_?" Lestrade asked.

"I'm equally in the dark," John said.

"For the scientific method," Sherlock 'explained.'

"Right, well, that's a very nice puppy, good for Jane. And as for this one, calculus gives me nightmares, so this, I didn't know math had half these symbols. Is that what this is? Are you trying to make me look stupid because I prefer the dog story over the space math?" Lestrade said.

Instead of answering, Sherlock dragged the books off Lestrade's desk and returned them to their shopping bag. Then, from the same bag, he removed the reverend's leather-bound book and slammed it down.

"What's that? It looks ancient. Is it some classic I've never read and you're going to mock me for it?"

Sherlock flipped the book open to a random page. Lestrade took a look at it and then glared at Sherlock.

"You _are_ trying to make me feel stupid. Just because I don't speak every language on Earth-"

Satisfied that he'd established a baseline reaction—namely anger with a hint of paranoia—Sherlock turned to the same page that had sent Miho into hysterics. Then he waited.

The annoyance, and all the color, drained from Lestrade's face. His mouth dropped open.

"That's what I saw. I don't believe it, but that's it. Her eyes were black, and she was doing this gesture. Like Darth Vader," Lestrade murmured. "What is this book, Sherlock? And what's happening here?"

Sherlock turned back to the table of contents. "This entire chapter is dedicated to identifying demons."

* * *

John had been picturing Sherlock's reactions during the entire drive back to Baker Street. He imagined explosive denials, ranting, raving, and more emojis being shot into the wall. From that, he imagined Mrs. Hudson barreling up the stairs to confront Sherlock, and then the both of them dissolving into a screaming match that could he heard clear across the city.

The scenario was so clear that John was almost disappointed when it failed to occur. Instead of destroying property, wearing a hole in the carpet while muttering angrily to himself, or tearing the flat apart for the cigarettes he kept hiding and John kept finding, Sherlock walked straight to his room. He closed the door quietly, like a normal, civilized human being, and left John standing in the living room.

Inside his bedroom, Sherlock dropped the bag of books, both the innocuous and the malevolent, onto the floor. Part of him was tempted to throw the bag out the window. Part of him wanted to burn it. And part of him, the strongest part, demanded he go through that damned book again and again and _again_ until it made sense.

Because it was _not_ demons. That was ridiculous. Humans did not need nasty little spirits whispering in their ears to commit great evil any more than they needed angels on their shoulders to do good. Greed, revenge, lust, sociopathic tendencies, these were the motivations behind crimes.

The problem was, none of those motivations left sulfur at the scene. Or explained how a tiny woman was able to concuss a policeman. Or accounted for the _book_!

Sherlock snarled and grabbed the bag by the handles. In an amazing turn of events, throw-it-out-the-window had come from a distant third place to snatch victory away from figure-it-out! Sherlock heaved the bag at his window, heedless of the panes and any passing pedestrians.

His aim was rubbish, too driven by anger, and the bag crashed into the wall inches below the window. That was not satisfying enough. Sherlock pursued the bag, snatched it up, and, coming to just enough sense to realize Mrs. Hudson would brain him with a lamp or frying pan if he broke her window, fumbled one-handed with the latch.

Enough clumsy pawing finally unlocked the latch. Sherlock yanked open the window and prepared to give the bag the old heave-ho. Before he did so, he looked down onto the sidewalk. His fury wasn't quite blind anymore, just very near-sighted. He was in control enough to realize if he smashed a child in the head, he'd go to prison. And that would put a serious damper on his future investigations.

There were no children, no disabled war veterans, no fragile old women. Nobody at all on the block, in fact. Sherlock swung the bag back.

A man appeared out of thin air.

Sherlock froze in mid-swing. His hand went slack and the bag dropped to the floor.

The man looked up at Sherlock from across the street and offered him a wave.

"Did you miss me?"

* * *

TBC

And for anyone wondering, _Treponema pallidum_ is the bacteria that causes syphilis.

Keith Moon played for the band _The Who_.

Anyone know the significance of _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_?


	10. The Tiny Library

Pardon the unpardonable delay. Par for the course...

Thanks so much to everyone reading, reviewing, favoriting and following!

* * *

"Sherlock!"

It felt like he was standing on the shoreline of a vast fog-shrouded river and someone was calling him from the far shore. The distance and disturbing acoustics of the mist warped whatever the stranger was trying to say. Sherlock stepped closer to the raging river as he strained to hear the garbled words.

"Sherlock! Get out of the street! What are you doing?!"

Fingers wrapped around Sherlock's arm and yanked him sharply backwards. The detective stumbled, and in his mind, he was pulled away from the churning current.

"What did you take? Sherlock, look at me. What. Did. You. Take?"

The hand released his wrist and was suddenly questing through his pockets, emptying precious work out onto the pavement. Sherlock grabbed the intrusive hand and held it as it writhed like a fish. While he kept the hand at bay, he did as commanded and looked into John's eyes.

"Nicotine."

"We don't have time for you to play games. Nicotine did not make you run through the flat screaming that Moriarty was waiting for you outside."

Sherlock took a shaky breath. He then released John's wrist so he could pull up his sleeve and reveal a line of three nicotine patches. "I've got another on the opposite shoulder, and that is it. I'm not on anything hallucinogenic."

Instead of looking relieved, John blanched. "You're sure?"

"What would you like me to say, that I'm so high I can't remember?"

John never thought he'd say so, but yes, he would have preferred to hear either Sherlock was wearing two dozen nicotine patches or had basically consumed a pharmacopoeia. Because drugs were something he could deal with quickly. He could force Sherlock to detox, or remove nicotine patches in a matter of seconds.

"Alright, let's go back to the flat before someone runs us over."

Sherlock let John lead him across the road and up the stairs. He was even compliant as John sat him at the kitchen table. But when John pulled out the medical instruments, Sherlock decided he'd had enough.

"Sit back down. I need to make sure you didn't have a stroke."

Sherlock snorted. "I have no facial drooping, unilateral weakness, or speech difficulties."

John shined a penlight in Sherlock's eyes. "Both your pupils are reactive, too. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't an actual stroke. Could have been a TIA."

"Or," Sherlock countered, "it could have been enormous amounts of stress, frustration, mild nicotine toxicity, and a great deal of caffeine you didn't know about until right this second combining with memories to resurrect my greatest foe for a brief hallucinatory second."

"Very possible. You're still going to a hospital."

* * *

By the time Sherlock had endured enough pokes, prods, blood-draws, scans, and invasive procedures to satisfy John, it was dark and Sherlock had long-since caffeine-and-nicotine crashed. While he was physically able to ambulate on his own, Sherlock preferred to slump in a wheelchair and act like his bones were missing. This left John to push him out in front of the hospital and hail a cab.

It also left John to half-drag the detective to his bed and throw a blanket over him. More exhausted than Sherlock actually was, John still couldn't retire. He put the kettle on, sat down at the table, and fell asleep within minutes.

An intermittent time later, John started awake.

"Bugger, the tea!" he exclaimed, stumbling out of his chair.

John reached for the control knob but found he had nothing to do. There was no flame lit on the range. Had he been so tired he hadn't actually turned the stove on? John pressed the back of his hand against the kettle and disproved his initial theory. The kettle was warm to the touch.

So Sherlock had turned off the stove. Before the kettle had whistled and awakened John.

"He wouldn't have," John muttered, knowing yes, he certainly would have.

Sherlock's room was empty. Well, empty of him. His bizarre experiments and collections were still spread everywhere. John sighed and looked around, not sure what he was even looking for. A note? Like Sherlock could be that considerate...

There was no use looking for overt clues, and if John hadn't spent years watching Sherlock pull miracles out of messes, he would have given up and just gone to bed. The tiniest hope that an iota of Sherlock's observational skills had rubbed off on him or passed to him through osmosis made John at least _try_ to glean something.

He let his eyes rove wherever they wanted. Sherlock's bed, the crowded shelves, the skull that was definitely not a plastic model, the floor, the bag of books Sherlock had wanted to throw out the window before his little meltdown.

John zeroed in on the bag. He keenly remembered Sherlock having three books: the children's book, the physics book, and the terrifying grimoire covered in human skin. The first two were safely nestled in the bag. The third was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Dylan Webley was indulging in his favorite genre of entertainment: schlocky, silly horror movies that were either remakes or sequels nobody asked for. Or, in the case of _Pterodactyl Park_ , low-budget rip-offs of films of actual repute.

A CGI dinosaur that looked like it had been created by drunk pretending to be an animator swooped across the sky. It did not have a shadow and its wings were obviously different lengths. The blonde it aimed its talons at had some of the largest breasts Webley had ever seen. They were as fake as the approaching dinosaur.

"So that's where you end up when your career in cat-burglary doesn't take off."

Webley toppled out of his chair, scrambled for something to protect himself with, and came up with the remote for the telly.

"Are you going to mute me with that?" Sherlock asked.

"What are you doing breaking into my home? I'm a police officer! You can't just go breaking into cops' houses!" Webley shouted from the floor.

"I'm guilty of entering, but not of breaking," Sherlock replied. "You left the window open in the bedroom."

"It's hot. Wait, that's not the point! What are you doing here?"

Sherlock dropped a heavy book in front of Webley. "What do you know about this?"

Webley stared at the book. "Nothing?"

"You said your grandmother had books on the occult when you identified the magic devil circle," Sherlock refuted. "This is a book about demons."

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"Your grandmother's books! Do you have a ten-second memory?"

"Most of them were written in English and the two that weren't, I used a translator online. It wasn't a great one, the grammar was all wonky, but I got the gist of them. I think. Want me to do that? Pull up the translator?"

Sherlock grunted in annoyance. "No, I do not want you to 'pull up the translator!' I'm perfectly fluent in Latin. I need to know why this exists."

"Because someone wrote it?"

Webley found himself hoisted off the floor and pinned against his armchair. "Three women are dead, one is insane, your boss was assaulted, faces have been burned, the post service is being misused, and someone absconded with a collection of illicit ancient artifacts!"

Webley held up his hands and desperately shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'll be serious! I just, I'm really not an expert. My gran was a bit of an eccentric, we didn't see much of her, so-"

"So it took a few weeks before anyone noticed the smell," Sherlock cut in.

"What smell?"

"From your dead eccentric grandmother."

"There was never a smell! What goes through your head?"

Sherlock smiled grimly.

"Forget I asked. What I was going to say is, it was a while before we realized she wasn't just ignoring us or too busy to be arsed to give us a ring."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "However you phrase it, my point stands."

"No it doesn't. She wasn't dead. I mean, she probably is, but it's not like we stumbled upon her body. And neither has anyone else in the past four years."

The consulting detective said, "Your grandmother just disappeared four years ago."

"Yes. Of course there was an investigation, but there were no signs of foul play, and given my gran's tendencies, maybe she ran off to France or something," Webley said.

"And left her collection of arcana behind?"

"If that word means 'collection of bloody weird books,' then yes. It's not like she'd be able to take it on a plane or a boat without raising the wrong eyebrows."

"What happened to it?"

Webley scratched the back of his head, trying to stimulate memories. "We sold a good chunk of it to a coven in America. And there was a bloke in North, West, eh, one of the Dakotas who bought a few of the older ones. The weird kid who lived next to my gran stole one of them..."

"Are there any you didn't send across the pond or lose to miniature criminals?"

"My mother didn't want to keep any of them, thought it was all too dodgy and creepy, but I held onto one. When I translated the title, I sort of felt my gran was watching out for me."

"Get me the book."

"Uh, sure. Would you mind letting me up?"

Sherlock realized he was still pressing Webley into the armchair. He released the cop and stepped back to allow him passage.

Webley gave Sherlock a nervous grin and scurried off. While he waited for Webley to return, Sherlock plonked his backside down in the armchair and ran some calculations through his brain. The consulting detective figured there was a thirty percent chance Webley would leap out a window, crawl under the bed, or find some other way not to return. The chances Webley was right then calling either 999 or Lestrade was a solid fifty percent. And the chances he wouldn't be able to locate the book? Sherlock glanced around the flat, noted the various trash Webley had failed to find and bin, and estimated fifteen percent.

Quicker than expected, Webley returned with book in hand. He took one look at the interloper who'd stolen his chair, decided on appeasement, and handed Sherlock the book.

Sherlock's thick, leather-bound book commanded attention and oozed creepiness. What Webley passed into his hands could have been purchased at a flea market for a pound. The book was cloth-bound, and that was the only nice thing Sherlock could say about it. The cover was an unattractive faded brown and the title had nearly become one with the background.

" _Praesidium_ ," Sherlock read. "Protection."

He cracked open the book and was surprised to see the king's English. Sherlock flipped through a few pages and found no more Latin. He thumbed a bit deeper into the book and discovered something more interesting than proving his linguistic prowess.

It was the intricate circle that had been spray-painted on the ground where Trevor had been scalded by still-unknown forces. As Webley had said, it was helpfully labeled a Devil's Trap. And there was a detailed description of it, its functions, useful materials for creating one, and clever places to hide one.

In the following chapter, there was the Latin Sherlock had been looking forward to so eagerly. Two whole pages of it. And, even more fun, it was a prayer. No, wait, it was an exorcism.

Sherlock was sure to use _that_ every morning, noon, and night...

The consulting detective turned past the exorcisms and found himself mired in more symbols. The most prolific one was a star surrounded by a flaming circle. This symbol had even found its way off the page.

And onto Webley's bicep.

"I needed a cover-up anyway and it looks righteous and reminds me of my gran." Webley touched the black tattoo. "And, hey, it's got history. Could you imagine trying to get this tattooed on you 100 years ago?"

Sherlock glanced at the black-and-white illustration in the book, which was indeed a shoulder bearing the symbol indelibly inked into it. Modern tattoos were scary enough, with a needle stabbing the skin faster than the eye could follow, but without a machine to do it at a reasonable rate, the process fell to a human hand.

All that infection-inducing history aside, Sherlock needed this book. At least a few pages from it. He considered his options. Webley probably would appreciate getting his book back in one piece; anything else might convince him to complain to Lestrade, who would in turn pass the buck to John, who would then give Sherlock a lecture he would ignore entirely but that would take up his precious time.

And speaking of John...

If he wasn't already awake and planning one of his famous lectures, he would be soon.

"I'm taking this," Sherlock said. He pushed himself out of the armchair and scooped up his creepy book. He then set Webley's more benign book atop it.

"But-"

"I'll return it when I'm finished." Sherlock paused. "No, that won't work."

"Why not?" Webley asked.

"Because I'll delete the idea from my mind the moment I walk out the door. If not before that. Wait, John has a much higher capacity for banality. I'll text him to return it."

Sherlock took a moment to glance at the irritated messages John had left him before ignoring them and replying with the non sequitur "Return Webley's grandmother." That accomplished, he shut the phone off so John wouldn't annoy him until he was good and ready.

"Uh, can I have your number in case-"

"Nope!"

"But that book-"

"Enjoy the mammoths."

Webley turned to the telly. "Those are dinosaurs. If you want mammoths, you have to wait for the second sequel which-"

The slamming door cut Webley short. He sighed and returned to his chair. "I'm never going to see that book again."

* * *

Author's Note:

A TIA is a transient ischemic attack. It is also known as a mini-stroke, and occurs when blood is blocked to a part of the brain very briefly.


	11. Sherlock Never Needs Help Ever

Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows!

Just a quick aside. Several reviewers have asked if the British Men of Letters or the Winchesters will be involved. No, I'm afraid they will not. Things are convoluted enough as they are!

* * *

Just in case he needed a quick escape, Sherlock told the cabby to idle outside for five minutes. With his contingency plan in place, Sherlock walked up the stairs to 221B. He entered the flat, took note of the two men waiting for him, and pivoted around.

"You're not going anywhere," John said, grabbing Sherlock's shoulders and pulling him away from the door. "Sit down."

Sherlock spun around and brushed John's hands away. "I'm not in the mood for an intervention."

"Brother mine, I think an intervention for you would warrant more people. This is more relevant to-"

"An unlucky combination of extreme stress, nicotine, and a Norwegian crime with similarities to a past case. There, mystery solved, go home, go to hell, go anywhere but here," Sherlock interrupted. "There's a taxi waiting outside, you can catch it if you leave in the next two minutes and six seconds."

"I try to avoid public transportation," Mycroft said.

"Sherlock, before you throw him out, maybe you could ask him if he knows anything?"

The consulting detective snorted. "Oh, he knows _everything_. He runs the British government, as he'll be more than happy to tell you."

"Oh yes," Mycroft said, "You've got some crop circles you'd like me to examine?"

"Did you tell him _crop circles_?! These are not crop circles!" Sherlock shouted. "Even if they were, I wouldn't need his help to debunk them! A single person, a rope, and a flat piece of wood can create an intricate crop circle overnight."

John, blushing slightly, replied, "I did not say crop circle. I just said circle. I didn't think you'd approve of the word 'magic', either."

"I don't."

Mycroft smacked his lips, tasting the word. "Magic? I've been asked by members of this current government about robots and aliens in Torchwood Tower, but I've yet to be asked where I've hidden Merlin."

"And you're not going to be. Eleven seconds to leave through the door or you'll be leaving through the window."

The elder Holmes sighed and took the door.

Sherlock went to the window and glanced down to ensure Mycroft was actually leaving and not lurking in the stairwell like some specter. After half a minute he saw his brother exit and bypass the taxi without so much as a glance at it. Sherlock began to move when a thought struck him.

The taxi was _still there_.

He had paid it just enough to warrant five minutes of idling and not a second more. In the detective's vast experience with cabbies, they were not people prone to charity fares or wasting time. If the man hadn't driven off to fresher pastures, something more important than money was keeping him there. Sherlock decided to find out what.

That didn't take long. Before Sherlock could even reach the taxi, the cabbie had rolled down his window extended a hand through it. He jerked his thumb towards the rear of the car.

"You forgot your books and I was nice enough not to let anyone steal them. How about a little something for my time?"

"If you'd read those books, you'd be paying me to remove them from your sight," Sherlock replied as he opened the door and recovered his possessions.

The cabbie wisely decided not to push the issue. He'd stick to holding briefcases and laptops hostage from now on.

"Oh, lovely, you've got another one," John said once Sherlock returned with his books. "Is this one covered in human skin, too?"

"No, this one is boring. It's only here because it was a family heirloom."

"Does it have something to do with the text you sent me? About returning a grandmother?"

"If you find her, I'm sure Webley would be overjoyed to get her back. John, I obviously had better things to do than complete that text. It logically should have ended with the word 'book.'"

"Logical to you, maybe. May I ask why you disappeared to harass a policeman? And what does his grandmother have to do with anything?"

Sherlock threw up his hands. "Do you have the memory of a goldfish? The scene where we encountered the 'magic circle' that you adore so much, Webley identified it as a Devil's Trap, per his grandmother's literature. I have that literature, albeit only a fraction, here!"

"And what did you learn from it?"

"Popular tattooing and exorcism prayers."

"Then I suppose all our problems are solved and I can go to bed. Goodnight, Sherlock. Be here in the morning."

* * *

Sherlock was there in the morning. As John suspected he would be, as the doctor had heard him ranting to himself, throwing things, pacing a hole in the floor, and having shouted phone conversations in at least three languages throughout the night. John had finally, at somewhere around four in the morning, been forced to jam cotton balls in his ears to block out the noise and get at least a few precious hours of shut-eye.

"We have to solve these cases before both of us lose our minds," John said as he shambled around, zombie-stiff, in search of coffee. "One more night of that, Sherlock, and you may find me coming after you with an axe."

"I'd welcome a severe blow to the head," Sherlock replied. "Decapitation sounds even better."

"Let's save that as a last resort. Did you discover _anything_ on your little sneak-away?" John asked.

"You can make excellent money selling old books if they're nonsensical enough."

John sighed. "So those old books are-"

Sherlock grabbed his original book from a table and then fished Webley's book out from under the sofa. "I've been over them at least twenty times. Why don't you have a look if you're so sure I'm missing something? And then, when you're done, we'll call Lestrade and pass them his way! Why don't I ring The Woman as well while we're harassing everyone I've ever associated with and let her have a go?"

John held up his hands. "Calm down. You're driving yourself insane. Forget about the books for a few hours and go have a nap. Or at least a shower."

The human nose could become desensitized to just about anything, but being reminded of his unwashed self reawakened Sherlock's sense of smell. He grimaced and decided to see if hot water could stimulate what repetition and tantrums couldn't.

While Sherlock was off making himself smell more palatable, John was left alone with his curiosity and Sherlock's new book. The fact it wasn't bound in anyone's skin meant John could at least pick it up without feeling his own skin crawl. And the fact it was mostly in English meant he could understand it.

Even if Sherlock fell asleep in the bath, the eventual loss of hot water would wake him long before John could finish the book. So he decided to skim and see if he couldn't find the tattoos Sherlock had been talking about. John wasn't by any means a theology scholar, but he'd seen _The Exorcist_ , and he couldn't remember the priest ever trying to repel the demon with ink. With that in mind, John leafed through pages until he found what he was looking for.

Whatever he'd been expecting—he had vague notions of something with a cross—a star encircled with fire wasn't it. It looked more like the logo of a heavy metal band than something even the most outlandish, outlier Judeo-Christian sect would embrace.

The image of an elderly Anglican bishop sporting the tattoo was, much to John's horror, taking root in his mind when Sherlock emerged wrapped in a towel and nothing else. That at least gave John's mind something else to recoil over.

"Any well-formed theories you've pulled from that?" Sherlock asked, gesturing to the book John had placed beside him.

"Could you put on pants please?" John asked. "Or at least secure the towel before- Oh, lovely, or just leave it on the floor and walk around naked. Also fine."

"I enjoy the breeze," Sherlock replied.

"I'm going to forget that. And...I may have something. Did Reverend Dave have this tattoo?"

The detective stared at John like he'd suggested Sherlock should go find a beehive and then mate with it.

"That-" Sherlock began, and John prepared for an explosion, "may be just the angle I was missing. I dismissed the tattoo as obviously ridiculous, but if it's a symbol used consistently across a group, _someone_ within that group may have answers. I need Lestrade!"

John blinked. "That's not something I ever expected you to say."

Sherlock corrected himself. "I need Lestrade's workforce and databases. When suspects are arrested, any distinguishing tattoos are recorded. I have neither the time nor the patience to search through thousands of swastikas and gang symbols."

"I'm sure Lestrade will be happy to help. And we'll ring him as soon as you get dressed."

* * *

"Call him again."

John sighed. "I've called his mobile, his home—something tells me he didn't willingly give you that number—and his desk. He isn't answering."

"Call Donovan."

"There's no need to. She picked up Lestrade's desk phone after the tenth time, and told me to stop because no one can get any work done."

"Then call Lestrade's neighbors."

John instead turned off the phone. "I have no idea who they might be, and even if I did, I'm not going to bother them. If you're so concerned, let's pay him a visit."

"You go."

"No, I'm not leaving you here by yourself. Find your shoes and I'll call a taxi."

Twenty minutes later, Sherlock was picking the lock on Lestrade's door while John tried his best to be both a shield and unobtrusive. Luckily for John, Sherlock was adept at breaking into police officers' flats. The doctor had hardly started sweating when the door swung open and Sherlock strolled in like he owned the place.

"Lestrade! Are you here?" Sherlock shouted.

"Wait until I close the door!" John hissed.

While John took a final quick look to make sure the neighborhood wasn't watching him felony his way into Lestrade's home, Sherlock explored, unencumbered by anything as noisome as a conscience. It didn't take him long to discover Lestrade wasn't there, but the reason for his absence wasn't immediately clear. There were no signs of forced entry, and as Sherlock had needed to pick the lock, that security measure was in working order. Nothing was upended, nothing was on fire, and there were no bullet holes in the walls.

"Call his mobile," Sherlock said.

John did as bidden. He and Sherlock then strained to pick up either a ringtone or vibration from Lestrade's phone. Thirty seconds later, they had Lestrade's voicemail.

"So he took his mobile with him," John said.

"Or it's dead, on silent, or was pitched out a window," Sherlock corrected.

"Right. So, what do we do now?"

Sherlock considered it. "If I take the time to report Lestrade missing, will Donovan be more receptive to searching databases for me?"

John sighed. "It does seem like the considerate thing to do."

* * *

Much to John's surprise, Sergeant Sally Donovan didn't slam them on the floor, handcuff them, and charge them with breaking and entering. That, he interpreted, must mean she was also concerned about Lestrade's disappearance. Which meant she likewise had no idea where he was, and had more pressing things to worry about than Sherlock's refusal to take a locked door for an answer.

Her mercy, however, was being eroded by Sherlock's entitlement so quickly that John was beginning to sweat. While Sherlock apparently didn't mind the idea of being locked in a holding cell for his belligerence, John had about a million ways he'd rather spend an afternoon.

"Sherlock," John hissed in his best exasperated parent voice, "will you please focus on the task at hand?"

The consulting detective continued to draw flames on the paper he'd stolen from a handy printer. "I am focused intently."

"I don't mean on that bloody tattoo, I mean on Lestrade!"

"You can answer her questions just as well as I can. Possibly better, because you won't make her feel like an idiot, and she won't punch you."

"Oi!" John and Donovan shouted simultaneously.

"Just as I said, if I'm remanded here, we'll all be devoured by our frustration and nothing will be accomplished. It may even come to blows! However, if I'm allowed to leave and focus my energies on the actual reason I came here, you two will get along famously _and_ I will not be forced up a wall."

Donovan sighed. "Fine, freak, there's the door. Just don't bother anyone who's actually working."

Sherlock grabbed his drawing and ran off to find the first officer who could help him access the tattoo database. Once he was gone to spread his havoc elsewhere, Donovan fixed Lestrade with a look he assumed the father of a classroom terror would often receive from teachers.

"What's this tattoo he's going on about?" Donovan asked.

"He found it in an old book and thinks there may be a cult or gang or something that uses it."

"Cults. Lovely. Do they have anything to do with all the," Donovan groped for a phrase and settled on "weird shit that's been going on?"

John thought for a moment. "I haven't the foggiest. Sherlock and I have investigated cults before, and for the most part, they're lunatics or terrorists. And not very good terrorists, either. The squid people were just...sad. But I don't know. Maybe he'll find a criminal mastermind in the database and we'll have something to work with."

"That's a lovely thought, but I'm not going to depend on it to find my boss. I'm going to get out there and-"

John's mobile buzzed in his pocket, interrupting Donovan's heroic speech. She glared at him and he, blushing, scrabbled in his pocket for it. In his haste, the phone slipped from his hands and skidded under Donovan's desk.

"For Christ's sake!" she said.

John grabbed the vibrating phone and jammed the power button. Just before the screen went blank, he noticed the source of the call and removed his finger.

"It's my landlady," John said, extricating himself from under the desk.

"So answer it."

John did just that. "Mrs. Hudson?"

He listened in silence for over a minute before dropping the phone to his side.

"John?" Donovan asked.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock and I have got to go."

* * *

TBC

The bit about the crop circles being made with a rope and piece of wood is entirely true. There are even how-to videos if you wish to add some _X-files_ to your local fields.

And there we go, a _Doctor Who_ reference!


End file.
